


The Christmas Armistice

by MissAppropriation



Series: Testimony Arc [3]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Beginnings, Canon Character of Color, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Characters Watching Doctor Who, Christmas Truce of 1914, Closure, Complicated Relationships, Developing Relationship, Disguise, Domestic, End of the World, Episode Fix-it: 2017 Xmas Twice Upon A Time, Episode: 2017 Xmas Twice Upon a Time, Episode: s03e03 Gridlock, F/M, Family, Female Friendship, Friendship, Hamilton References, Happy Ending, Hope vs. Despair, Hypnotism, I Made Myself Cry, Mentioned Companions (Doctor Who), Missing Scene, Morally Ambiguous Character, New Earth, Novel, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, POV Clara Oswin Oswald, POV TARDIS, POV The Doctor (Doctor Who), POV The Master (Doctor Who), POV Twelfth Doctor, Pandemics, Post-Canon, Prequel, Redemption, Referenced Time War (Doctor Who), Regeneration Angst (Doctor Who), Relationship Negotiation, Romantic Fluff, Serial: s029 The Tenth Planet, Sort Of, Spoilers, The Doctor & The Master (Doctor Who) Friendship, Virus, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Wordcount: 30.000-50.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:49:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 44,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23993317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissAppropriation/pseuds/MissAppropriation
Summary: The Twelfth Doctor has decided not to regenerate, that maybe he has lived long enough and it's time for his story to end. But a Universe without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about. And luckily, the Master has a Plan.Sequel to Floor 507. Extensive spoilers forTwice Upon a Time. Fully Canon compliant! But with a twist... ;)
Relationships: The Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald, The Doctor & The Master (Doctor Who), The Master & The Doctor's TARDIS, The Master (Simm) & Helen Clay, The Master (Simm) & The Doctor's TARDIS, The Master (Simm)/Clara Oswin Oswald, The Master/Clara Oswin Oswald, Twelfth Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald, Twelfth Doctor & The Master (Simm)
Series: Testimony Arc [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1730113
Comments: 7
Kudos: 34





	1. The Plan

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, this needs a **TRIGGER WARNING** for a significant **deadly Global Pandemic subplot**. I finished this fic last year and never thought it would be so topical by the time I would post it. If you have been personally affected by the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic, please be aware that reading some chapters of this might be an issue for you. I will post warnings in notes at the start of those chapters. <3
> 
> That said... This is the sequel to my _The Doctor Falls_ fic, Floor 507!! Updates will be posted every other day. Please enjoy. :) <3 <3

The Master gazed into the mirror, disguise complete. He posed, smirking at his own unfamiliar reflection.

The Master had worn many different disguises over the centuries, utilizing a wide variety of methods. Hard light holograms, shape-shifting robots, psychic masks... Aliases and forged credentials and stolen identities.

And then of course, there were the uniforms...

Everyone trusted a uniform.

This disguise incorporated all of the Master's years of accumulated knowledge and experience.

It was his finest work ever. 

It _had_ to be. 

Fooling someone into thinking you were their past self was a tall order indeed.

 _Especially_ when that person was the Doctor.

He walked out into the next room where a petite, brunette woman stood in front of an enormous control panel.

The Master cleared his throat. "What do you think?" he asked proudly.

The woman turned around and burst out laughing. "You look _ridiculous,_ " she told him.

"So... Perfect then," the Master grinned. This was _the Doctor_ he was attempting to impersonate, after all. If he didn't look ridiculous the disguise would have been a clear and immediate failure.

"Yeah..." the woman agreed, folding her arms and looking him up and down in admiration. "Yeah, totally perfect. You ready?"

The Master considered this question for a moment. So many moving pieces, so much preparation, so many years spent working towards this day...

"Yeah," he nodded, taking a deep breath. "Ready. Do you remember what to do?"

She rolled her eyes humoringly. "Yeah, I think we've gone over it enough times."

"Are you sure?" he worried. "Because timing will be crucial and there's no telling how things might develop..."

"Hey," she cut him off, taking his hand, turning it over, gaze lingering on the glowing gold regeneration energy playing over it. "Don't worry,” she said. “We've got this. You and me. Team Doctor, remember?"

The woman stepped closer, reaching up to put a hand fondly to his disguised face.

"Go get him,” Clara said. “Have fun." She kissed him on the corner of his mouth and smiled, happy and sad at the same time. "I'll see you when it's over."


	2. The List

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot is a bit of a slow burn but it gets there, I promise.

_Chapter 2: The List_

The Master sat in his office at the University of New Earth.

He'd insisted on having an office. There had been some resistance... After all, he wasn't _technically_ an employee of the school. He was Director of an independent research project. So he wasn't on the payroll and wasn't at the University full time.

They'd wanted the office for their _actual_ staff.

But the Master had been able to convince the responsible parties that it was _very_ important that he got an office of his own. 

Hypnosis made everything so much easier. The Master sometimes wondered how he'd ever managed without it while he'd been in a non-Time Lord body. So much time lost convincing people, tricking people, paying people... Not that he didn't still do all of those things, of course. They had their place. But there was nothing like hypnosis when you needed something done quickly and properly.

There were people, of course, who resented the special treatment he received, but the Master was hardly unfamiliar with office politics... The University of New Earth was nothing compared to Gallifrey when it came to polite backstabbing. 

They were out of their league.

His project kept him very busy but on days when he was feeling bored, he'd think up little ways to make his rivals' lives more difficult. They'd come in, complaining about the inexplicable run of bad luck they'd been having lately and the Master would make sure he was available to commiserate with them: _“How unfortunate! How could this have happened? Is there anything I can do to help?”_

Then he'd go back to his office chuckling to himself.

They'd either end up seeing him as an ally or he'd get a chance to rub salt in the wound. 

Either way, he won.

And that tactic was for the people who merely _annoyed_ him.

In the year after the Testimony Project was started, the University of New Earth had had a string of firings and resignations. People who made trouble for the Master didn't last long.

It hadn't even been difficult. A little blackmail here, a little scandal there... He hadn't needed to use mind control, hadn't even needed to make anything up. Everyone had secrets.

It took him back to his roots as a trainee at the Celestial Intervention Agency.

Those were good times... Everything was so _simple_ back then.

But all the turmoil of personnel reorganization was long behind them now. It had been twelve years since Testimony had been founded and the Master was quite happy with how things at the University were running these days.

Professor Helen Clay's career had seen a meteoric rise. She was his forever now, would do anything he asked... No hypnosis required.

He had the final say on all decisions and paid his employees very generously. People fought tooth and nail to work on the Testimony Project. The Master had his pick of talent.

He came and went as he pleased, leaving his partner and employees to do the brunt of the work when he was away.

Everything was running smoothly.

And they'd made tremendous progress.

Another twenty-five to thirty years and they should be ready for what he needed them to do.

He could try accelerating that, but he had to be careful... Testimony wasn't a short-term goal. No, Testimony only worked if it lived on. It had to be firmly ensconced in its proper timeline for that to happen.

Meanwhile, the Master had to stay close, to supervise, to keep the project on its proper track.

But that was alright.

Forty years wasn't such a long time for a Time Lord. Even a hundred years would have been a bargain, considering what he was attempting to accomplish.

There was a knock on the door and Professor Helen Clay entered. She had aged slightly in twelve years, as humans did. She seemed excited.

"Dr. Keller, I wasn't sure you'd be in today. I have something you should see."

"Oh?" He was intrigued. "Lead the way."

Helen’s team was clustered around a device, proud, eyes shining with quiet excitement.

She gestured towards the machine wordlessly, inviting the Master’s inspection.

He took his time, scanning the readouts, inspecting the data. "This is incredible…” he said eventually. “I thought we were years away from this?"

"You should have more faith in us," Helen told him with what would have been cockiness if she hadn’t been presenting a truly incredible result.

"It would seem so,” the Master acknowledged. He’d known Helen was good, but it seemed she was capable of exceeding even his high expectations. 

That was unusual. 

“Congratulations,” he said sincerely, “this is... Superb.”

The team of scientists glowed at the compliment, though it had mainly been intended for Helen.

“Are you confident that you've perfected the process then?" the Master asked, doing mental calculations, upgrading his timetable.

Helen took a breath. "I'd like to do some more trial runs within the laboratory environment,” she said cautiously. “But... I anticipate being ready for field testing within the year."

The Master smiled. "That's... Extremely impressive,” he said. He gave her a sharp look. Not many people pushed themselves so hard, especially once they had already achieved success. Helen really was something special. “You should be very proud."

" _We_ should,” Helen corrected him, indicating her coworkers. “It was a team effort.” 

The Master sent a look in their direction. He knew all their names, had vetted them, hired them. He knew they weren’t on Helen Clay’s level. Still, he gave them a congratulatory nod. Everyone had their part to play.

“And none of this would have been possible without you, doctor," Helen said.

Well, that was certainly true. Not just anyone could have come up with Testimony. And whenever Helen and her team hit a wall, the Master was ready to step in and solve the problem.

“Teamwork,” he smiled. “Well done, all of you.”

Time passed and Testimony moved forward.

Field testing was an unmitigated success.

No one was harmed, no one remembered the process... The timelines remained undisturbed. And the memories harvested were complete, pristine, all detail and personality intact.

Soon enough, they were ready to move on to the next stage: out of beta testing, ramping up to full-scale, stable operations.

Which meant it was time for the next phase of the real Plan.

The Master made his way to his partner's office. She was seated at her desk, typing up a document.

She paused as he entered, saving her work.

"Doctor," she smiled. "Are you looking for a status report? I should have it ready by the end of the week."

"Ah, no,” he said. “That can wait."

She set it aside immediately. "So what can I do for you?"

"Now that we are moving forward with Testimony, you'll be looking for subjects," he stated.

"Yes,” she confirmed, “we have a team on that. They are currently drafting a list of options to submit for your approval."

"It just so happens that I've made my own list,” he said, avoiding her gaze. “I'd like you to start with these names."

She gave him a questioning look and opened the file.

"Ian and Barbara Chesterton, Zoe Heriot, Sarah Jane Smith, Perpugilliam Brown…” Helen read out the familiar names. They meant nothing to her but everything to the true purpose of Testimony. “Who are these people?" Helen asked with an incisive look.

He thought about evading or lying but... Helen Clay was _smart_. She'd figure it out eventually.

A decade and a half of working together... Maybe it was time to own up to this particular detail.

"They're time travelers," he told his partner.

She looked at the locations and range of dates. "And?" she asked slowly. "What else? What is their significance?"

It was such an insightful question, he had to smile. "They all traveled with the same person."

"A rogue time traveler? From..." She paused to scan the dates and locations. "Ancient Earth in the Twenty-First Century?"

The Master almost contradicted her but then realized she wasn't so far off. "That's a fairly accurate description, yes," he admitted with a chuckle.

There was a pause.

"You?" Helen asked with a knowing look.

He grinned. "No. Although I have met some of them…” He cocked his head, considering his partner. “How long have you known?" He’d thought he’d hidden it reasonably well...

"A few years,” she shrugged with a smile. “You know far too much about the topic to be a mere academic," she pointed out.

"Hmm. Well done," he congratulated her.

"So then, this is the true purpose of Testimony?" Helen asked, scrolling through the names again.

"It's the start of it, yes,” he confirmed. He squinted at her. “Is that a problem?"

She shook her head, serenity unruffled. "No. I knew from the beginning that you had your own agenda, just as I had mine.” Helen Clay really was an even better choice of ally than even he could have foreseen. “No matter your end goal, you've done a lot of good for this University. And for me, personally."

He nodded towards the list. "So?"

"Whatever you need,” Helen agreed wholeheartedly. “We'll start with your names."

"I should add that these are Top Security level targets,” he added. “They need special care and their memories will require personal clearance from me to view."

The Doctor’s companions and their memories had to be treated with care and respect. They weren’t being saved for just anyone, after all.

Helen’s team had spent nearly an extra decade making absolutely certain the memory harvesting process was flawless. The Master had insisted. The Doctor would never accept Testimony if there were even minor side effects or temporary discomfort.

Helen hesitated at his addendum. "Ah, there might be some pushback on that. The board will want to see results at this point in the process."

"Hm,” he considered. “And if we add a few names from your team's list?"

She smiled smoothly. "Then we shouldn't have a problem."

"Let me know if we do,” the Master instructed.

Dealing with problems was why he was here.

"I will,” she agreed. “Anything else?"

"Not at the moment, no," he said.

She went back to her report. "Always a pleasure, Dr. Keller."

"Likewise, professor," he replied.

He meant it.


	3. November 23rd, 1986

_Chapter 3: November 23rd, 1986_

The Master carefully and precisely materialized his TARDIS at the point he had chosen.

Materializing a TARDIS inside of another TARDIS was tricky, to say the least... But the Master had had some practice.

He exited his ship to find himself in a familiar white, roundelled corridor.

Immediately, he felt the TARDIS's telepathic field, curiously probing his mind. He followed the corridor to the main Console room.

_'Little One!'_

She was surprised to see him.

 _"Hello, old friend,"_ he smiled back.

_'You are outside of your timeline.'_

_"I know... Sorry about that."_

She laughed, like wind chimes and handbells and icicles breaking in the winter sun.

_'I think I shall survive. You are here to help our Thief.'_

_"Yes. How did you know?"_

_'You told me, Little One. Do you not remember?'_

She was teasing him.

_"I did, yes. That was a long time ago... And a long way in the future."_

_'All things are future and all things are past. You have lived many days since you last walked through my doors.'_

_"Yes. There was work to do."_

_'He is arriving soon, our Doctor.'_

_"As we agreed. There will be consequences, I'm afraid."_

_'For you as well, Little One.'_

_"I'm aware. It's been worth it."_

_'We shall save him.'_

_"I think we will, yes. I'll see you soon."_

_'I will be waiting, Little One. Always waiting.'_

The Master opened the large, white double doors, leaving the younger TARDIS to walk out into the snowy landscape of the South Pole.

Towards the present-day TARDIS. Towards the Doctor. 

This was exactly where he had planned to be, where he had instructed the TARDIS to take the Doctor all those decades ago.

This was the South Pole, right outside of the Snowcap Polar Base on Earth, on a date well known to those versed in Fixed Points and temporospatial curiosities. 

This was the day Earth’s impossible echo planet tried to absorb its twin.

A long time ago, before the Doctor and the Master had been anything more than schoolboys dreaming of the stars, they had learned about Mondas at the Academy on Gallifrey.

That was a class the Doctor had actually paid attention to. He always had loved a mystery.

According to their teacher, for reasons unknown, the events of this day were a Fixed Point in the history of the Universe.

The Master now suspected the reason was far simpler than anyone on Gallifrey had ever theorized.

This was the day the Doctor regenerated for the very first time. Certainly, the effect he would have on the Universe throughout the rest of his regenerations was enough to make this sequence vitally important to shaping the future.

And something else had happened on this day, far north of the South Polar base... Somewhere in a hospital in Blackpool, Clara Oswald would be born today.

Time travel made birthdays show up unexpectedly sometimes but the Master really felt he should get her something. 

They would save the Doctor first. Then there would be time to take Clara to a hundred birthdays.

The Master trudged through the snow, muttering to himself like a sulky child. 

Everything from now on would have to be as in-character as possible. Luckily, he was very well-acquainted with the man he was pretending to be... Even if it had been a while since he'd last seen him in this body.

And of course he hadn't been around for this specific part of the Doctor's timeline... But then, that's what the research was for.

And what delightful research it had been.

Catching up on the Doctor's past, on the parts of his friend's life he had missed, had been enlightening, incredible and _hilarious_.

He'd gained a new appreciation for his old friend. And for the people who had traveled with him.

He hadn't expected that. 

He'd never fully realized just how much all the Doctor's little humans meant to him. Nor how much they had taken care of the Doctor over the years. Certainly, he'd always known the Doctor needed _a lot_ of looking after. 

But apparently, he needed an entire _army_ of babysitters.

Sometimes literally, in the case of UNIT.

Because he seemed to get himself into some kind of terrible trouble every ten minutes.

It was shocking that he'd even survived long enough to refuse to regenerate now.

Through the gently blowing snow, he saw a figure kneeling. Heard a familiar voice calling out.

He knew this was the Doctor just after the colony ship. Just after the Master had refused the Doctor’s plea to have his best friend at his side while he tried to die.

Just after the Master had taken Bill and Missy away from the Doctor.

He had no regrets about Missy. She had been a ghost long before he'd killed her. 

But Bill... He hadn't realized at the time how much damage that must have done.

He’d be returning them both to the Doctor, in a way, before the day was through.

How long had the Doctor waited, how long had he been alone? Minutes, maybe an hour, at most?

It had been decades for the Master... An entire lifetime.

And he _hadn't_ been alone.

That had taken some getting used to.

The Doctor had scarcely been able to believe it when he’d found out.

So much had happened. So much had been accomplished.

So many adventures he'd had with the Doctor, backtracking over his friend's timeline. Because there was work to be done. And because he refused to miss out.

So strange to think how the Doctor had lived all of that before Floor 1056... The Master hadn't even suspected.

_Well done, Doctor._

It had been risky, of course. A few Laws of Time had been broken, perhaps. But the Master was willing to live with the consequences of that.

Oh, and it had been _worth_ it.

_One more day..._

_Just a few more hours._

And then the Plan would be complete.

_Alright, Doctor... Ready or not, here we go._

"Who is that?" the Master called out.

"I'm the Doctor," came the predictable response.

_So easy..._

"Oh, I don't think so. No... Dear me, no," the Master said as he walked closer. "You may be _a_ Doctor, but I am _the_ Doctor. The original, you might say."

And the Doctor stared in disbelief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The Tenth Planet_ is canonically set in winter 1986. I went ahead and chose the exact date because... I couldn't resist this happening on Clara's birthday. :) <3


	4. Best Show In the Universe

_ Chapter 4: Best Show In the Universe _

The Master locked his office door and queued up the first set of memory tapes. It was Barbara Wright Chesterton, one of the Doctor's first two humans.

The Master had only met her once. Briefly, accidentally, along with Ian, the man she had married.

The Time War had caused some strange ripples in the Universe.

But though he didn’t really know Ian and Barbara personally, he did know that the Doctor hadn't ever planned to bring them along in the TARDIS. That they had met the Doctor through Susan Foreman, as the Doctor's granddaughter had chosen to call herself after Gallifrey. They had been Susan's teachers at Coal Hill School when she and the Doctor had stopped in London for five months in 1963.

The Master wasn't terribly interested in Barbara and Ian's story... The Doctor had always made friends with _everyone_ , as far back as the Master could remember. It was a troublesome habit long before the Doctor became the Doctor.

He had even tried to make friends with _doors_ , back in the day. 

In fact, he'd insisted that it had _worked_ on occasion, which was blatantly hilarious.

The Master wasn't watching these memories for the humans involved.

It just so happened that copying the memories of the Doctor's revolving door of humans was the best way to piece together the Doctor's timeline. The best way to catch up. The only choice in terms of research, since the Doctor could never seem to answer a simple question.

To be fair, this promised to be much more fun anyway.

The Master got himself some coffee and started at a random point in the story. 

In a story this long, continuity was relative.

They group had landed on Earth, clearly in the wrong time. The Master chuckled at the fallacy that the TARDIS had malfunctioning directional circuits. He knew better. So did the Doctor, now... But it had obviously taken him a long time to realize that his inability to "steer" the TARDIS was a combination of operator ignorance and a "machine" who had quite a bit of free will and plenty of her own ideas about what was best.

And thank goodness she did. _Someone_ had to pay attention to where the Doctor was going. He really wasn't capable of doing that himself.

Especially in the old days.

The Master watched Susan with a sad smile. She'd grown up so much since he'd seen her last, before the Doctor had left Gallifrey. He shook his head as she twisted her ankle doing something foolish and unsafe. 

_Just like the Doctor._

And then the Doctor, scolding his teenage granddaughter, said, "What you need is a jolly good smacked bottom!"

And the Master almost choked on his coffee.

He couldn't stop laughing for hours afterwards as he skimmed through Barbara's adventures fighting the Daleks in 2164.

The Doctor and Barbara hadn't been together for most of that adventure.

But she had been there as the Doctor locked Susan out of the TARDIS, stranding her on Earth with the man she had fallen in love with so quickly... The Master smiled again, remembering when he had left for five days, returning to find his best friend suddenly madly in love with a girl he'd just met.

He'd also lost the moon. Because that's just how he was.

That had been a long _, long_ time ago...

The Master paused the tape and leaned back, arms crossed, face locked in a troubled frown.

It was a lot to process.

Susan was such a concrete link to the life he and the Doctor had shared before leaving Gallifrey. But there was more.

Because the Doctor _clearly_ needed to regenerate.

The Master knew, of course, why he hadn't. Ian and Barbara wouldn't know. Susan might not even know... But the Master knew. Because he had _been_ there. 

It was because of _him_. Because of how badly his first emergency regeneration had gone.

He hadn't meant to traumatize his friend... He'd thought the Doctor had gotten over it but that clearly wasn't the case.

Of course, if things had gone differently, he would have had a support system. And that would have included the Master.

The tragedy which had prompted the Doctor's flight from Gallifrey had taken away that support system. But the Master had been there. He still could have helped.

But no. The Doctor just _had_ to run off on his own...

_Stupid Doctor._

It bothered him that no one had told the Doctor to regenerate. 

Ian and Barbara likely had no idea what species the Doctor and Susan even _were,_ let alone what regeneration was.

Worse than any of that was watching how much needless danger the Doctor put himself in. How close he came to the edge, _routinely_.

The Master knew, obviously, how much trouble his friend could get into. That was nothing new.

But he'd sort of assumed that he'd caused most of the worst of it in recent centuries.

From what he'd just seen, it was starting to look like that might not be the case _at all._

The Master leaned his forehead on one hand, shaking his head in disgust. It was far more stressful than he'd imagined watching the Doctor blunder through hazards and mortal danger with no one there qualified to look after him.

Not that the Master had always done the _best_ job of taking care of his friend... That's what all of this was about, after all.

But the Daleks wouldn't hesitate to kill the Doctor. That danger was _real_. Not like the games he and the Doctor played.

_Did the Doctor even know the difference?_

Was there no one who could tell when he'd gone too far, no one to drag him away when he was in imminent danger and too distracted to leave? No one to yell at him, to _make_ him listen whether he liked it or not?

The Master realized he knew someone who could do at least _one_ of those things. Or at least thought she could.

He pulled up the file on Perpugilliam Brown.

He skimmed through her story and spent a few moments wondering how Peri was doing these days…

Was she still angry with him for stranding her on an alien planet to avoid the planned carnage of the Year That Never Was? It had been for her own good but she had been stridently disapproving about it the next time he saw her.

This reminded him of someone even better at shouting at the Doctor and he pulled up the file on Tegan Jovanka.

That particular Doctor had needed someone at his side watching over him constantly. Even more than most Doctors. Tegan had taken it upon herself to be that person. And she had done an exceptional job under the circumstances, judging from the memory footage.

The Master thought about the good Peri had done for the Doctor, how she had held him to a standard he'd partially forgotten. He thought about how Tegan had looked after the Doctor when he was barely able to take care of himself, let alone anyone else.

The Master had once hired someone to travel with the Doctor. That experiment had been somewhat successful, while it had lasted.

Perhaps it was time to revisit that strategy...

But first he'd need to know a little more about what he was dealing with.

The Doctor who had come to Malcassairo, the one he'd dealt with while he was Harold Saxon, had been profoundly broken, barely recognizable as the Doctor he had known before the War. 

Let alone _during_ the War.

The Doctor had been _incredible_ during the War.

There was nothing the Master could do for that Doctor at the time. He'd been thoroughly broken himself and in no position to comprehend or deal with a Doctor who wouldn't even _talk_. A Doctor who would sit by and watch while the world was murdered, who would block out the needs of others, who could listen to his own TARDIS screaming in pain and do nothing... 

All just to prove a point. 

That _he_ was in charge. That _he_ made the rules. That no one else got a say.

It was like something the Master might have done.

He hadn't realized that at the time.

But with hindsight and the return of sanity, it was difficult to miss.

That wasn't good.

When the Doctor tried to be someone else, things got out of hand quickly. And this Doctor was _succeeding_.

And judging from what he remembered of that Doctor from the next time he'd seen him, things had not improved much.

Clearly, this was where he needed to intervene. He couldn't do anything in person, obviously. The paradoxes would be far too dangerous.

So he'd need to find someone else.

That would take a lot of work. It was difficult to imagine someone who could make that Doctor listen. Even the Master hadn't been able to do that... And he'd tried for _a year_.

But that search would have to wait.

First he needed more information on what had happened during this Doctor's lifetime. He needed to know what had happened, what _had_ to happen, what he might be able to fix.

He watched through the night

The next day, the Master came to Helen's office with a second, longer list. Because he needed more information.

Three weeks later, he showed up with a _much_ longer list of names: Mickey Smith, Adelaide Brooke, Alonso Frame, Harriet Jones, Wilfred Mott...

Helen Clay just raised her eyebrows and silently acquiesced.

And the Master started piecing together a record of the Doctor's life.

He started working out where the Doctor had needed him.

He couldn't help everywhere, of course. But if he was precise, if he was careful... He could do _something._

He could help with the worst of it. 

Just as long as the Doctor didn't know.

Which was precisely how the Master liked it anyway.

It was while he was reviewing the memories of Wilfred Mott that he noticed one Donna Noble.

He wasn't _looking_ for her. But she was difficult to miss.

She was brilliant, intuitive and trying desperately to be something she wasn't: she was trying to be _normal_.

Nothing about Donna Noble was normal.

She had a will of iron and was channeling her considerable might towards caring about the trivia of daily life on Earth.

The Master had had his own struggles with that, during his time as Harold Saxon. He could relate. Earth could be profoundly mind-numbing. 

Best of all, she was _loud_. And when people disappointed her, she had a tendency to smack them.

The Master snickered, imagining her hitting the Doctor. There were times when the Doctor could use a good slap, honestly.

But she was also kind... She took care of everyone around her, instinctively.

She was almost _too_ perfect.

And then he saw what she could do with paperwork. And that's when the Master realized...

Donna Noble was a _genius_.

He had to meet this woman.

And then the Doctor had to meet her.

He closed down his videos and walked across the room to his TARDIS.

There was a weak point in the Doctor's timeline around Christmas 2006.

He'd need to look into that further, find out what Donna Noble was up to then.

Time for some in-person research.

He’d been up to a few things himself at the time... 

He’d have to be careful not to run into himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is the Master a Doctor Who nerd? Why, yes. Yes, he is. Not sorry. ;p
> 
> For more info on the Master's rather messy first regeneration, see the first DW fic I ever published, A Tale of Two Time Lords.
> 
> As usual, I've also referenced some headcanons that haven't really made it into my fics yet: Time War Team meeting Ian and Barbara, Theta marrying the President's daughter, Saxon stranding Peri on another planet during the Year for her own safety, Mel being hired to be an "undercover" companion... I'll get there eventually. I have many stories to tell. ;)
> 
> Also, yes, I'm saying the Master hand-picked Donna for 10. I like it and I'm sticking with it. :)


	5. Double Standards

_Chapter 5: Double Standards_

The Master posed, hands on the lapels of his jacket, just like the Doctor used to do, so long ago.

The Doctor stared, mouth hanging open.

The Master smiled. 

Possibly a _bit_ more smugly than he should have, but... He was enjoying himself _immensely._

Watching the Doctor's face freeze in shock, it was hard to stay focused on the task he'd come here to accomplish.

The Doctor clambered to his feet, honestly stunned. "You... How can it be _you_?"

This was the tricky bit. Because the Master would need to sell the disguise right off the bat. Once the Doctor suspected something, he wouldn't stop pulling at that thread until he had unravelled the entire mystery.

And even if there wasn't a problem to solve, the Doctor wasn't above _making_ one.

The Castrovalva incident had been a harsh learning experience.

That whole regeneration had suffered as a result of the Doctor's refusal to just _sit still_ and recover for a couple of days in the town the Master had created with Adric.

The Doctor could be the most difficult person to help sometimes. Smart enough to sense a hidden agenda and too stupid to figure out that it was actually for his own good.

But the Master had learned from his mistakes. He'd be there himself this time, actively involved, managing the situation. He had created layers of complexity for the Doctor to unravel.

Hopefully it would be enough.

Step one was to convince the Doctor that he was talking to himself.

"Do I know you, sir?" the Master asked, feigning ignorance.

For a moment he was afraid the Doctor had seen through his disguise immediately. But no... He seemed to be reasonably convinced, at least for now.

"This is the South Pole," the Doctor realized. "We're at the South Pole."

He was putting together the narrative, piece by piece. Catching up to the story the Master had constructed so painstakingly.

_Well done, Doctor... And?_

"This is it," the Doctor continued. "The very first time that I, well, you - _we_ \- regenerated." The Master stared at him, pretending to be shocked at the word. "You're mid-regeneration, aren't you? Your face, it's all over the place."

_Ok, well that was hurtful._

The Master had worked very, very hard on his disguise and he _knew_ it was flawless.

Maybe it was a little harder to disguise yourself as someone's past life than he had anticipated?

_No matter._

The Doctor had obligingly come up with his own explanation anyway.

_Thank you, Doctor._

"But you're trying to hold it back..." the Doctor continued.

It was true... Nothing lent verisimilitude like an _actual_ pending regeneration.

One of the consequences of crossing over his own timeline multiple times as part of the Plan.

The Master had no regrets.

He may have shortened this specific regeneration's lifespan a little but it was a tradeoff he was entirely comfortable with.

He wouldn’t take a single year of it back.

"What do you know of regeneration?" the Master asked. "Are you a Time Lord?"

The Doctor grinned. "You know who I am. You must!"

The Master ignored him.

Because _nothing_ kept the Doctor on the hook like ignoring him.

"Have you come to take the ship back?" the Master asked.

The Doctor skipped, literally _skipped_ to join him at the door of the TARDIS. It was all the Master could do not to burst out laughing then and there. "The ship! You still call it a ship!"

Knowing the Doctor would need a moment to digest the situation he'd been presented with, the Master made a circuit of the current TARDIS, loudly observing the differences of the last couple millennia. He felt the hum of her engines through the wooden walls.

_'Little One...'_

Just a whisper.

_"Good to see you, old friend... Thank you for bringing him."_

The Doctor was muttering to himself, talking about how he didn't remember this... But of course he _wouldn't_ , had he truly met his past self. The Master had planned for that.

"Why are you trying not to regenerate?" the Doctor wanted to know.

Something in his manner... He was suspicious.

But the Master had an answer. 

And any minute now, there would be a distraction, perfectly timed to give the Doctor a task to focus on.

The Master stared at his stubborn friend proudly. "I have the courage and the _right_ to live and die as myself," he declared. He hoped the Doctor heard how silly that sounded.

Because the Doctor _didn't_ have that right. Other people cared about him, depended on him... At the end of the day, it really wasn't his decision to make.

Of course, this was the Doctor: you couldn't just _tell_ him that. 

But the Doctor wouldn't hesitate for a moment to tell _himself_ that.

"Too late, it's started," the Doctor pointed out, clearly not seeing the double standard. As usual. "We have a choice. Either we change and go on, or we die as we are."

And then he realized, then he caught up... He saw just the tip of the iceberg of what it would mean for the Universe to lose the Doctor.

The Master had thought long and hard about how best to bring this point to the Doctor's attention... Because he'd never comprehend the truth of what a loss that would be. He couldn't. No, it had to be put in terms which he could understand and accept.

It had to be about saving the Universe, not about saving the Doctor.

"If you die here,” the Doctor said, thinking aloud as he always did, “if your future never happens... If you don't do the things that you are supposed to do, the consequences could be -"

Suddenly, Time stopped.

_Right on cue..._

The Master smiled inwardly. Clara really had a knack for theatrical timing.

One of her many exceptional qualities.

"The snow..." the Doctor said.

The Master pretended to be confused. Because the Doctor _loved_ explaining things.

"Everything's stopped," the Doctor said. "But why?"

_Yes, Doctor, I've given you a puzzle. Enjoy._

"Maybe it's us, maybe it's something else," the Doctor added.

_Hmm. It seemed he wasn't satisfied with the obvious explanation..._

Good thing the next distraction was on the way.

"But somehow," the Doctor continued, "something has gone very wrong with Time."

"Hello?" came a polite, bewildered voice.

Another man made his way through the snowy landscape of the South Pole.

The Master wasn't sure if the Doctor would figure out who this stranger was... He often missed the things which were right in front of his face. And he didn't have most of the information he would need to put together the significance.

But, looking at the military man in front of them, it was difficult not to see the resemblance.

The Doctor, the Master and a Lethbridge-Stewart stood together in the snow.

The cast was nearly complete.

All they needed now was an assistant. Because the Doctor was never happier than when he had an Earth girl to explain things to.

And the Master had just the girl.

Well, girls.

But that would come later.

The Master’s Plan was serious, the stakes high.

But no one ever said that saving the Doctor had to be _boring_.

Watching the Doctor unwrap the multiple layers of his gift was half the fun.

This whole drama would probably only take an hour or so to play out, compared to the nearly two centuries the Master had spent setting it up...

Worth every second.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HUGE shout out to the Chakoteya Doctor Who transcript website. I literally couldn't have written this without that as a resource. <3 <3


	6. New Arrival

_Chapter 6: New Arrival_

Helen Clay knocked politely on her partner's office door.

She still wasn't sure how Dr. Keller had managed to get the best office in the whole University. But after their two decades of working together, she had learned not to question it. She was curious, certainly, but had come to accept that her cohort had ways of getting what he wanted.

Maybe she didn't really need to know _how_ he did the things he did. As long as the work got done. Academia was a cutthroat world. It seemed Dr. Keller was exceptionally well equipped to deal with that.

She heard him call out for her to enter and opened the door to see that he wasn't alone.

Helen was mildly surprised. He was _always_ alone.

But today there was a young woman sitting curled up on his couch, leafing through what looked like study readouts. She had shiny brown hair, pale skin and big, intelligent eyes. She looked up as Helen walked in.

The visitor immediately jumped off the couch, hand outstretched. Her mouth quirked up at the corners as if she was always one moment from bursting into laughter. "You must be Professor Clay! It's such a pleasure to meet you."

"And you are?" Helen smiled, taking the woman's hand civilly.

"Clara Oswin Oswald," she introduced herself.

"You're keeping Oswin then?" Dr. Keller asked from his desk, watching the interaction.

The visitor shrugged lightly. "Yeah, I decided I like it."

Helen looked at Clara, then at Dr. Keller, back at Clara. There was a similarity to them. As if they shared a private joke. As if they didn't fit in... And didn't intend to. 

She knew what that meant in her partner. She felt it was reasonable to infer the same about this unexpected arrival to the University. 

"And, pardon me for asking, but... How do you know the doctor?" Helen asked.

Clara shot a confused look in Dr. Keller's direction.

"She means me," he smiled.

Clara laughed, turning back to Helen. "We, umm, we met a while back." She seemed to be struggling a bit to know which words to choose. "Through a mutual friend... Sort of."

Helen raised her eyebrows at her partner, suspicions confirmed.

"Miss Oswald is my..." He paused, giving Clara a humorous look. "Companion?"

Clara narrowed her eyes at him, clearly uncertain about this designation.

"Assistant?" he grinned mischievously.

Clara rolled her eyes. "No, maybe not. How about we just go with _friend_ for now."

"Well, it's very nice to meet you, Miss Oswald." Helen had said that to a lot of people in her time at the University. It was required of her as a professional to like everyone she met - or at least to pretend she did. But it was always nice when she got to _mean_ it. 

She _was_ pleased to meet Clara, would have been pleased to meet any friend of Dr. Keller's. 

She’d begun to assume he didn't have any.

"Oh please, call me Clara," the newcomer said warmly. "Your partner here was telling me all about the work you're doing... It sounds fascinating."

"It is," she replied sincerely. Helen loved their work. "We're very lucky to have him here at the University. He's a true visionary." Dr. Keller smiled briefly, watching them with a strangely cautious expression. "This study has been truly groundbreaking in terms of our understanding of memory technology."

"I'd love to hear more about it," Clara said hopefully.

Helen looked at her and realized that's not _all_ she wanted to hear more about. She had just arrived. She wanted to know about her friend's professional life, wanted to share stories.

Helen had stifled her curiosity about her partner for so long she hadn't even realized it was still there. But now that she suddenly had someone to ask her questions of, it reawoke full force. 

Where did he go when he wasn't at the University? Where was he _from_? Did he have friends, family?

Helen smiled at Clara. "Are you planning to stay in town long?"

"Think so, yeah..." she said uncertainly, glancing at Dr. Keller. "My schedule's kind of wide open at the moment. Maybe we could meet for lunch one of these days?" she suggested.

"I'd like that," Helen agreed. "I'll check my schedule."

"Uhh..." Dr. Keller broke in with a frown, "I'm not sure that's such a good idea."

"Hmm, well I'm not sure anyone asked you," Clara replied coquettishly.

Dr. Keller stared at her for a moment, clearly disapproving of where this friendship was heading. Then he just turned back to Helen, pointedly ignoring Clara. "You had something to show me?"

"Yes, the latest readings from our last group of subjects. Very promising..." She brought them to his desk. He started looking through the results.

Clara moved to kiss him on the cheek. "I'll see you later."

"What?" He spread his arms, looking surprised and oddly hurt. "Where are you going?"

"Exploring!" she told him enthusiastically. "New Earth, New New York. Big city outside. What, you thought I was just going to sit here all day watching you work?" She was laughing at him.

"Well..." He huffed, annoyed.

"Don't worry, I'm just going to have a look around," she reassured him. "We can meet later for dinner."

He brightened up a bit. "Where would you like to go?"

She chuckled. "Surprise me."

"Alright, I'll make a reservation." He shot her a crafty look.

"Hmm, bit last minute?" she worried insincerely.

"Well, that depends," he smiled. He pulled a credit chip out of his desk drawer and held it out to her. "Here, take this."

"What is it?" Clara asked, turning it over curiously.

Helen hoped they were more subtle than this in public. Everyone knew what a credit chip was.

"Money," Dr. Keller told her simply. "New New York is expensive."

“Money, ‘kay.” Clara seemed to think that was funny, for some reason. She slipped the credit chip into her pocket and turned to Helen. "Anything I should look out for? New in town, any recommendations?"

Helen considered for a moment. "There's a fascinating exhibit on Old Earth at the University Museum, if that's something you might be interested in." She knew that it _was_ but the look Dr. Keller gave her was worth it. "It's been extremely popular. They're even talking about expanding it into its own museum."

"Possibly, yeah," Clara said. "Might check that out." Clara turned to Dr. Keller, kissed him on the top of his head and brushed a hand against his cheek like she was trying to pull his gaze upwards. "Dinner. Don't forget."

He didn't look at her, stubbornly focused on his readouts. "Keep your phone on, please."

"Yes, sir," she agreed with a smile. "Bye."

He glanced up at her for just a moment. “Bye.” And Helen caught just a glimpse of how he felt about Clara before he looked away again.

"Lunch," Clara mouthed silently at Helen as she moved to the door. Helen smiled. 

"I like her," she told her partner as they found themselves alone again.

"Me too," he replied, purposefully understated.

"So where did you pick her up?" Helen asked. "Or perhaps I should say, when?"

"Hmm..." he smirked appreciatively. "Around. Now, about those test results?"

"Yes,” Helen said, back to business. “Take a look, I think you'll agree they're rather exceptional."

"Oh, yes…” he nodded. “This is excellent."

They talked about the project, about next steps. Dull, mundane details. Things they both knew were necessary, something they were both good at it.

But the goal they shared was anything but dull. _Discovery._ Scientific advancement on a scale which would change the galaxy, even the entire Universe.

Helen had always known her partner had imagination: he had come up with this Project, appeared on her doorstep with the entire glorious idea fully completed. But her role had never allowed her to see the side of him that got excited about things. Their interactions focused on the day-to-day, on the bureaucracy, on paperwork and signatures and funding.

It seemed that perhaps Clara knew that other side of him. Helen liked the thought of he business partner having someone to share his enthusiasm with. And of exchanging her own experiences with Clara Oswin Oswald.

Dr. Keller looked up at Helen with a brief frown, almost as if he’d sensed her train of thought.

She just gave him a deadpan stare and continued discussing the readouts.

And made a note to schedule that lunch with Clara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For details on how Post- _Hell Bent_ Clara and the Master became a thing, see Once Upon a Time, which is Part 2 of this series.
> 
> You definitely don't need to read it to understand this story. But gosh, I love these two as a couple. :')


	7. Out of Character

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for... Mentions of underage drinking, I guess? Not sure what the legal drinking age is on Gallifrey, but I in no way condone teenage, delinquent Time Lords trying alcohol. ;p

_Chapter 7: Out of Character_

The Master squinted into the bright white light as he and the Doctor fought to be the one in front. 

While pretending that they _weren't_ fighting, of course.

He'd missed messing with the Doctor _so much._

It had been a while since he'd seen the Doctor, with all the work of getting Testimony up and running. All the obstacles. The last-minute changes to the Plan.

He could never have done it alone... He was lucky to have found such an ideal co-conspirator in Clara Oswin Oswald.

Passionate, smart, competitive… Clara heard the word _impossible_ and took it as a challenge.

And Clara, like the Master, simply refused to accept any reality which didn’t include the Doctor.

Most of Clara’s part in the Plan would be behind the scenes. Others would take the spotlight.

For instance, the control center of Testimony whom they now faced. A shining, glass computer interface, fittingly modeled after one Professor Helen Clay. 

He had been lucky to find her, too. She had been a perfect partner.

The Master stated the facts of where they were to Testimony. 

The Doctor added that Earth was protected.

The Master pretended to be surprised.

Because that was a new stance for the Doctor, since the Time War. Not something the original Doctor would have been able to relate to on any level.

Because, back in the day, _all_ of the Universe had been protected, more or less. By the Time Lords. By the system they had put into place.

They'd seldom enforce the rules, seldom intervene... But when someone went too far, when the Universe was put in peril in such a way as to come to the attention of Gallifrey, the Laws _would_ be enforced. 

And mercilessly so.

The Master had done some of that enforcing himself... Long, long ago.

And had ended up on the other side of that equation as well, once or twice, later on.

Now, the Doctor had redefined the center of the Universe. Had made his own rules, as he always did.

Earth was _important_. Earth was _protected_.

And that meant something very different coming from the Doctor than it ever had in the days of Gallifrey.

The Master hoped the Doctor would go into detail... He tended to figure things out literally _while_ he was saying them.

Maybe he'd realize that if he succeeded in dying, Earth wouldn't likely last more than a year.

The Master was certain about that number. He’d run the scenarios.

One year. Two at most.

But no, the Doctor breezed right past that opportunity.

_Annoying..._

No matter.

Plenty more ahead. He'd get the message eventually. 

"Oh. Okay," the Doctor said as the control unit vanished. "That doesn't usually work."

The Master resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

_Really, Doctor?_

_Something you do doesn't usually work?_

The Master had to keep the story moving. He could sense the Doctor's attention on him.

The Doctor ultimately figuring out who he was wouldn't disrupt the Plan. In fact, it was entirely probable that he _would_ . He generally did, eventually. But if he discovered the truth too early, things could get _complicated._ Because the Doctor just loved being difficult.

The Master pulled out the TARDIS key he had obtained from his ally.

He'd had his own, a few times... But they kept getting lost.

Dying made it difficult to keep track of things.

Of course, he could have simply opened the doors with a snap of his fingers. The TARDIS always let him in when he asked nicely.

That would have given the game away slightly, however.

So entered the old-fashioned way, using Clara’s key.

The Master pretended to be shocked at the brushed metal TARDIS interior.

_'Welcome back, Little One.'_

_"Good to be back."_

He'd been in this specific Console room many, many times… He assumed he still had a desk waiting for him under the Console, next to the Doctor’s workbench.

Placed there specifically for his visits. 

He’d miss that...

He wondered what the new Console room would look like.

He supposed it would depend on the new Doctor.

The TARDIS tended to find decorating touches which perfectly reflected the current Doctor's regeneration.

He loved that the TARDIS felt the need to change with the Doctor. It was a fitting show of support.

The TARDIS was the only other creature he'd ever met who paid as much attention to the details as he did himself.

The only other one he'd trust to take care of the Doctor long-term.

The TARDIS could hear his thoughts, could sense his admiration. He didn't try to hide it.

They were a team. Protecting the Doctor whether he liked it or not. Guiding him, looking out for the details he inevitably missed.

Considering the big picture, the long-term plan. Because as wonderful as the Doctor was, and as many talents as he had, he'd never been very good with that.

"It's hideous!" the Master protested.

He could sense the TARDIS laughing quietly at the disconnect between his thoughts and his words. She whispered to him.

_‘Silly Little One... Careful.’_

_"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."_

_'He is watching you.'_

_"I know. That's what the Captain is for. How's he doing?"_

_'He is stubborn. He will not listen to me.'_

_"Hmm. We'll see what we can do about that. I can lay the groundwork but it will likely be down to you in the end."_

_'Yes. Now hush, he may hear us.'_

The Master did as he was told. Because she was _right_. This Doctor was more in tune with the TARDIS than any previous incarnation. He had probably already sensed their discussion.

The Master had taken off his hat and cloak. "Enough of this," he said, interrupting the Doctor and the Captain. "Who are you?"

"You know who I am," the Doctor insisted. "You knew the moment you saw me."

It didn't _quite_ work that way with your own future regenerations, as the Doctor was well aware. 

A trap? Or just the Doctor being an idiot?

Sometimes it was so difficult to tell the difference.

For the Doctor as well, the Master suspected...

The Doctor continued on the same track. Never far behind. "I'd say stop being an idiot, but I kind of know what's coming..." he joked.

This Doctor was so quick, so focused... Keeping up would be a challenge.

The Master _loved_ a challenge.

He might have to get a bit creative. But then, that was why he was here in person, after all.

"I assure you," the Master replied, handing the Doctor his own copied outerwear, "I do not have the faintest idea who you are."

That annoyed the Doctor. That was good, he might lose track of the scent until the next distraction.

"Well, I know who _you_ are..." he said snippily.

The Captain, wandering around the Console room, had found a videotape. One of the Master's, he assumed. The Doctor had never been one for television, really. It required sitting still. "Is anyone going to explain what's going on?" he asked.

The Doctor ignored him, trying to prove his point. That he and the Master were the same person. Ironically enough... He held up his hand, displaying the golden glow of regeneration in his now-healed hand.

The Master looked at the matching glow in his own hand.

They'd never regenerated at the same time before. Not once, in all the centuries. 

This would be a first.

The Master pretended to be dismayed. Because, somehow, the Doctor was always unhappy meeting his own future selves.

The Master couldn't imagine why. They were all the Doctor, after all. But that was the Doctor for you.

"You... Are me?" the Master said. "No... No." As if it was the most terrible revelation. 

"Yes. Yes, I'm very much afraid so," the Doctor answered with a sympathetic grimace.

"Do I become... You?" the Master wondered. He knew the Doctor's second face, of course, remembered him fondly. The Doctor had been wonderful back then. 

"Well, there's a few false starts, but you get there in the end," the Doctor quipped.

He seemed a bit too confident... Time to flip the power dynamic.

"But I thought..." the Master faltered, eyeing the Doctor judgmentally.

"What?" the Doctor asked. 

"Well, I assumed I'd get, uh..." He looked at his gray-haired friend, remembering how this Doctor was somehow so sure he had the body of a teenager. "Younger?"

"I _am_ younger!" the Doctor shouted, offended.

The Master laughed internally. That was better... The Doctor was off his game when things got personal. As they both were, really.

But the Master had the advantage this time, because he knew who he was dealing with. He knew the Doctor's buttons. The Doctor, on the other hand, still thought he was talking to _himself_.

In fact, the Doctor might not even remember his first self very well. He had trouble relating to his past lives and the role the Master had chosen was a _very_ long time ago for the Doctor.

Perhaps it was time to get a bit more creative in his portrayal...

Captain Lethbridge-Stewart chose this opportune moment to politely have a fainting spell.

The Master seized the moment, springing into Doctor-inspired action. "Oh, you're in shock. Let me help you! Er, brandy," he said to the Doctor. "Get him brandy. Do you have any? I had some... Somewhere."

The Master knew this for a fact: they'd been to Aldebaran together in the early days, picking up a bottle of the local brandy as a souvenir. If the TARDIS had kept it, as she kept most things, it should still be here... The Doctor had taken one taste and declared that he hated it.

The Doctor mentally consulted the TARDIS and ran off to one of the roundels, finding the beverage in question immediately.

"Who are you people?" the Captain asked.

"I am the Doctor," the Master told him, "and this is my..."

The Doctor had returned, tried to break into the conversation. "It's complicated. Actually, I am _also_ -"

"My nurse!" the Master finished. 

"Excuse me?" the Doctor said, taken aback.

"I realize that seems a little improbable," the Master acknowledged.

"Well, yes," the Doctor agreed. He wasn't comfortable taking the secondary role anymore. It had been a long time since he had learned how to take command of a situation. He was _good_ at it. And he _liked_ it - usually. 

And, generally speaking, most people weren't able to take back control once the Doctor was running things.

Other Doctors might be able to...

The Master _certainly_ could.

"Because he's a man," the Master continued.

"What...?" the Doctor muttered. He was confused.

Confused was good.

And _funny_. That was a bonus.

"Older gentlemen," the Master explained to the Captain, "like women, can be put to use."

The Doctor was embarrassed, stopping everything to correct what he assumed was his past self, apparently having some kind of profound breakdown of manners.

The Master could sense the Doctor wondering if this is what he had been like, back in the day. He _hadn't_ , of course. But the uncertainty was what mattered.

The Master ignored the Doctor's correction, choosing instead to call the Doctor out on the level of liquid in the decanter.

"Have you had some of this?" he asked.

"Well, you know, I may have snuck _a glass_ at some point in the last fifteen hundred years,” the Doctor said, covering his uncertainty with irritation. “It's been rock and roll."

And that's when the Master remembered the guitar. 

The Doctor was prickly about that guitar...

He looked around as they continued their exchange. "And I suppose this is meant to be my TARDIS?" he asked.

" _Our_ TARDIS," the Doctor muttered.

"What's wrong with the lights?" the Master asked.

"It's supposed to be like this," the Doctor insisted.

"Why?" the Master asked.

"It's atmospheric!" the Doctor stammered.

He clearly had no idea. The TARDIS took care of her own interior decoration.

"Atmospheric?" the Master mocked. "This is the flight deck of the most powerful space-time machine in the known universe, not a restaurant for the French!" He may have gone a bit far with that one. The Doctor hadn't ever taken much notice of decor. But that was fine, because the Master had caught sight of the Doctor's electric guitar. "Good Lord, what is that?"

The Doctor's response was beautifully panicked. He ran towards the instrument as if he could somehow hide it. "Oh, look what someone has accidentally left here!"

Then he lamely tried to blame it on the Captain, who did not have the wits to play along with the ruse.

"It appears to have been played quite recently," the Master pointed out, savoring his friend's discomfort. "It's the only thing here that's been cleaned." He decided to double down on making the Doctor feel awkward. "In fact, this whole place could do with a good dusting. Obviously Polly isn't around any more."

Now the Doctor was just focused on making this stop. "Please, please," he begged. "Please stop saying things like that."

There was nothing quite so wonderful as the Doctor begging.

The Master had nearly forgotten what he was here for until the TARDIS shook around them.

Testimony.

_Right._

This interruption was the ship he and Clara had made together to house Testimony.

Testimony hadn't originally been planned as an independent, mobile operation but necessity had dictated it. And it had turned out to be so much better than the first Plan.

Testimony was self-contained now, could go anywhere, would go on forever...

As it should. As it must.

Because the information it housed was too important to be lost.

The Doctor looked out of the doors, taking longer than he needed to assess the situation. He was always too curious to really focus on solving the situation at hand.

He ran back to the Console, trying to dematerialize.

_Sorry, Doctor... It won't be that easy._

"I can't get the engines to start," he said, stating the obvious. "There's some kind of signal blocking the command path."

He would figure out at some point that the level of technological advancement needed to immobilize a TARDIS was nearly inconceivable. Without prior experience, that is.

But it would take a couple of minutes for that realization to hit home. In the meantime, they were on to the next chapter.

And it was going to be a good one.

"Exit your capsule," came the echoing voice of Helen Clay. "The Chamber of the Dead awaits you."

"I'll fix the engines while you keep her talking," the Doctor said. Of course, the engines weren't broken and the Doctor hadn’t an inkling what was actually going on. But he did like to pretend he had a plan, especially when he had no idea at all what his next move might be.

The Master obligingly stepped out into the familiar central chamber of Testimony, leaving the TARDIS door ajar as he exited.

So far, everything was going perfectly. Just as planned... More or less.

But he couldn't get complacent.

The Doctor was here.

And everything had gone right.

So it was high time for something to go wrong.


	8. New Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pure fluff. Enjoy. :D

_Chapter 8: New Life_

Clara navigated through the now-familiar corridors of the University of New Earth, headed back to the Master’s office.

She entered without knocking. After all, it was sort of her office too now.

Clara had found herself with a guest lecturing position at the University.

New Earth was beautiful and teeming with culture and excitement and new things to explore.

It had kept Clara entertained for nearly three weeks before she had started getting restless.

Not that she didn’t love having endless free time to fill but… It was a bit like being on holiday while everyone else around her was working.

And being on holiday on your own got slightly boring after a while.

Clara had already been on her own a lot lately.

The Master had Testimony to keep him busy, of course, as did Helen. Clara was still catching up on the two decades of progress they had made there and couldn’t do much to help yet.

Clara wanted to be _part_ of something again. She felt like an outsider on New Earth and was tired of drifting.

She’d spent years drifting after the Doctor, after Gallifrey. Everywhere she and Ashildr went, they were always just visiting. Clara had never realized before just how much it mattered to her to have a _home_ to go back to.

She’d expressed this in general terms to Helen Clay on one of their lunches, which had quickly become a standing twice-weekly appointment.

She’d just been talking, thinking aloud but Helen had quickly come up with a solution.

Would Clara like to guest lecture at the University occasionally?

Clara laughed, because what could she have to lecture on at a prestigious University in the year five billion twenty-four?

“Perhaps Old Earth?” Helen had suggested with a twinkle. It was a subject of intense interest on New Earth, for obvious reasons.

Clara accepted on the spot.

The Master already knew about her new job by the time she made it back from lunch that day. Helen had wisely called him immediately for details on which strings would need to be pulled. 

The Master had handed Clara a shiny new birth certificate and ID. 

“Congratulations,” he said. “You’re now an official citizen of New Earth.”

Clara had squealed slightly and hugged him.

He still seemed surprised every time she hugged him. 

He’d just have to get used to it. 

They both had adjustments to make.

And he’d been alone far, far longer than she had.

It had been a few months now and he still seemed to forget she was there sometimes.

Clara was happy to keep reminding him. Because every time she did he looked surprised and then his eyes lit up and he dropped whatever he was doing to smile at her like she was the only thing in the Universe that mattered.

It made Clara love interrupting him.

He was watching Testimony memories and taking notes as she walked into his office. He looked up and smiled. She grabbed her lecture notes and moved around his desk, leaning against him and putting an arm over his shoulders.

“Who are you watching?” she asked.

He paused the video and pulled the earphone out. “The Brigadier,” he said.

“Again?” she asked.

“There’s a lot there,” he explained, putting an arm around her waist. “Hi,” he added.

“Hi,” Clara replied delightedly.

“How was…” He squinted for a moment, assessing her manner, her outfit, trying to remember what he should be asking about. “... Lunch?” he guessed.

Clara suppressed a laugh. Watching the Master and the Doctor trying to be normal was always incredibly entertaining. They both had to add so many steps just to approximate normal small talk.

Clara appreciated it all the more because of that, though.

“Good,” she said. “Helen says _hi_ , by the way.”

“What did you talk about?” he inquired suspiciously.

Clara smirked. “You, mostly,” she readily admitted.

He scowled for a moment so Clara kissed him on the cheek so he would smile again. It worked.

“Don’t worry,” she assured him, “I didn’t give away any of your deep, dark plans.”

“Hmm,” he said. “Where are you off to now?” he asked, eyeing her file.

“Got a lecture today,” she said brightly.

“Oh?” he asked, genuinely interested. “What’s this one on?”

“Music Technology on Old Earth in the early Twenty-First Century,” she told him. “Apparently there’s some confusion about what an MP3 is and why it would need its own player. Also what that has to do with apples.”

He laughed. “Well, I’m sure they’ll be interested to hear your ‘theories’ on the subject. Don’t mess up the timeline too much,” he said lightly.

Clara made an innocent face. “Oh, way to take all the fun out of it.”

She moved to stand and he pulled her back. He took her file and set it down on his desk, clearly signalling that he wanted her full attention.

She happily obliged.

“What are you doing later?” he asked quietly.

“You tell me,” she replied, leaning in close.

“Hmm…” he said thoughtfully. His eyes sparkled as he considered the possibilities. “The Floating Gardens of Neo-Babylon? The Heian Period of Japan?” Clara squinted, unconvinced. “Or something more familiar, perhaps... Paris? Belle Epoch?” He gave her an up and down glance, eyes distant. “The World’s Fair in 1889 is spectacular.”

“Mm,” Clara considered. As much as she enjoyed seeing the Master in Victorian costume, she wasn’t really in a corset mood today. “Sounds nice but... What about something a little more _exciting_?”

She watched him run through options, planning, absorbed in finding the perfect answer. She could have watched all day. She saw the solution light up his eyes. “Chicago, Roaring Twenties,” he announced triumphantly. “Gangsters, Prohibition, speakeasies… Exciting enough?” he said, knowing her response before he even asked.

“It’s a date,” Clara grinned. “Although I wouldn’t want to interrupt you and the Brig.”

He waved at the screen, taking her joke more seriously than she’d intended, which made it far funnier. “Oh, he’s not going anywhere.”

Clara’s phone started to ring and the Master frowned, displeased. “Who’s that?” he asked.

Clara glanced at her mobile and then at the Master’s screen. “Speak of the devil,” she said. “It’s Kate, I have to take this.”

The Master rolled his eyes, aggravated. “ _Again?_ Can’t she go a week without asking for help?”

“She wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important,” Clara reminded him as she stood to answer the phone.

“ _Just_ like her dad…” he grumbled, shaking his head at the paused memory playback on his desk. “He was always interrupting at the worst times, too.”

Clara, on the phone a few feet away, swiped at him, signalling for him to shush.

“Uh, nobody!” she said to Kate. “So, what’s up? Ooh. Oh, that’s not great… I’ll be right over.”

She hung up and turned to the Master with an apologetic grin. “Can I borrow the TARDIS?”

“Why?” he sighed.

“Kate needs help,” Clara answered. “Something about killer seaweed? I don’t know.”

He stopped sulking. “Oh, I have some info on that… Hang on.” He pulled up some notes. Clara waited patiently as he flipped through them.

She wanted to point out the contradiction of him helping his past enemy’s daughter save the Earth. That it didn’t exactly fit with his whole villain schtick. But if she _did_ say something, she knew he’d get all huffy and start trying to prove that he was still a threat.

Which was perfectly true, of course.

That would be bad for everyone...

So Clara just enjoyed the moment silently.

She watched as he searched intently, single-minded. “Ha,” he said triumphantly after a couple of minutes. “Victoria. It’s sound.”

“Sound,” Clara nodded, making a mental note. “Got it.”

“If it’s the same thing…” he frowned. “ _Killer seaweed_ is a bit vague.” He looked up sharply, wanting details. “Did she say anything else?”

“I’ll be sure to ask when I get there,” Clara smiled back, trying not to laugh.

He was already back in his notes. “This one should probably be in the UNIT files, though… Did she even _look_?” he muttered.

Clara shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know. You want me to call her back so you can ask?”

“No!” he said reflexively. “I’m just saying they should do their research before they call you.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Clara agreed, knowing that they certainly _had_. “Ready to go?”

Clara was fully capable of piloting a TARDIS on her own but the Master would never tolerate being left behind without transportation while Clara put herself in danger.

He painted it as a selfish choice. And that explanation made perfect sense. But Clara suspected it wasn’t quite as simple as that.

He got up, still scrolling through his notes. “It’s a very specific frequency… Might be complicated finding that again under the circumstances. I’ll send you what I have. I wish she’d said if it was the same…” he grumbled disgustedly.

Clara shoved into him gently with her shoulder. “Sure you don’t want to help?” she couldn’t resist asking. “It seems like you want to help.”

“Pfft,” he waved dismissively as he scanned though his notes. “No.”

Clara just watched him with a smile. It might be a _bit_ hard to sell the Master as a consultant to UNIT but it wasn’t that far outside of the realm of possibility.

After all, it wouldn’t exactly be the first time. He’d built an entire sky ship for them not too long ago. 

The Master had plenty of reasons to want to protect Earth at this point, whether he had realized that yet or not. And invasion attempts didn’t always have the decency to be easily foiled. Clara and Kate had handled most of it pretty easily so far but that wouldn’t always be the case. 

Someday, Kate would need more help and Clara _did_ have a Time Lord on call, though not the one UNIT might expect.

Kate wouldn’t like it much but if things got bad enough, Clara knew neither UNIT nor the Master would have much of a choice.

Although Clara suspected that despite what he might say, the Master would jump at the chance to join in on defeating an attempted alien invasion. He clearly felt left out.

It was only a matter of time, really.

But Clara wasn’t about to share these views. Things would happen in their own time. Spoilers seldom helped anyone, really.

He sent the specifics to her phone. “Here.”

“Thanks,” she smiled. “Can I drop you anywhere? Want to go see what the Doctor’s up to?”

He brightened up and shrugged casually. “Why not?”

Clara wasn’t certain how much the Doctor knew at this point… If he was aware of Clara’s ongoing consulting position with UNIT, why the Master showed up at St. Luke’s University without a TARDIS every so often just to hang out…

But though he didn’t yet know _why_ , he did know that he and the Master were out of sync. He might have gotten somewhat used to doing without too many answers by now.

Clara wished she could come along on these University visits. She wondered what they talked about, how the Doctor coped with his self-enforced exile on Twenty-First century Earth. 

But the Doctor didn’t remember her, not right now.

Not yet.

Anyway, the Doctor and the Master deserved their own time together.

And Clara had her own obligations. Saving the Earth. Because _someone_ had to do it and no one said it always had to be the Doctor...

Besides, it was fun.

The Master and Clara flew off in their TARDIS, on their way to their separate destinations.

Five minutes later, Helen knocked on the half-open door and poked her head in.

The room was empty and the large clock which usually stood humming in the corner was missing… Again.

Helen just smiled and shook her head, pulling the door closed behind her. 

She’d try back in a few minutes.

And at some point, they might need to have a conversation about discretion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, for those of you who are up to date on the latest series of DW: I feel like Dhawan's Master is extraordinarily well set up with this fic. I did put a lot of thought into the Master's arc and where he seemed to be headed, and did purposefully leave some of it open-ended, just in case. But considering I finished this almost a year ago, I'm pretty delighted with how well my headcanons have meshed with new Canon! But more on that later. :)
> 
> Thanks for reading this far!! Things are going to start getting more intense pretty soon... All my favorite chapters are ahead!! :) :)


	9. Chamber of the Dead

_Chapter 9: Chamber of the Dead_

“Look around you,” came the voice of Helen Clay. “You stand in the Chamber of the Dead.”

Slightly dramatic name but… It had seemed apt. And Testimony had liked it.

The Master knew the Doctor was watching from the TARDIS. That was part of the Plan.

There were things he needed to hear.

“You are known to all here,” Helen's voice said, quite truthfully, “for you are the Doctor of War.”

The Master knew the Doctor still felt bad about fighting in the Time War, still had trouble acknowledging that part of himself.

He _shouldn't_. 

He’d been _the Doctor_ when the Universe had done everything it could think of to tell him he wasn’t needed, that his time had passed, that kindness had no place in War...

He’d stayed true to himself in a time when that should have been impossible.

And even with those odds, with all of reality stacked against him… He had _still_ won.

On his own terms.

He should be _proud_.

But he was an idiot.

So the Master planned to point out the discrepancy in no uncertain terms. Or rather, to get the Doctor to do so for him.

“The Doctor, yes,” the Master conceded. “The Doctor of War... Never, ma'am, never.”

He wished he could see the Doctor's face right now.

And then, as planned, it was time for Bill's big entrance.

The first of the Doctor's Christmas presents.

The Master, of course, had to pretend that he didn't know her, though he had spent ten years with her a while back. 

And then, more recently, there was that time when she had shown up at the University of New Earth, talking about “closure”...

That had been unexpected.

But she wouldn't recognize him today. He'd specifically shielded his true identity from Testimony.

Testimony was so self-contained now that he needed to figure that into his plans. Clara could influence some of the decisions directly but any and all conversations had to be able to play out believably and independently.

Testimony was playing Bill right after she had been saved by Heather. Right after the Doctor had died blowing up a bunch of Cybermen, along with himself.

They’d be delighted to see each other again.

“Is he here?” Bill's avatar asked, smiling that big, guileless grin. “Is the Doctor here?”

And the Master watched as the Doctor _ran_ from the TARDIS.

He watched them hug.

The Doctor was so happy to see her. 

Desperately so.

The Master had wanted that, of course. That was why he had chosen Bill, why he had harvested her memories as she had begun her new life as some sort of extra-dimensional water entity.

Trying to give back what he had taken.

But… The reunion was far more intense than he had expected. It was a bit more than he was able to process.

He stood back and let it play out.

He had no part in this interaction.

“I knew it!” Bill said. “I did, I knew it. I knew you couldn't be dead, you don't have the concentration.”

That was an extremely accurate assessment.

The Master may have underestimated Bill while she was alive and human.

Then the Doctor's manner changed. He backed up, pulled out his sonic screwdriver, scanning Bill.

_No, Doctor, no..._

“Bill Potts,” he said.

“Yeah,” Bill's avatar responded.

_No, Doctor. Don't do this..._

The Master watched in dismay as the Doctor proceeded to reject his gift.

“My friend Bill Potts was turned into a Cyberman,” the Doctor said. 

Indeed she had been. By the Master. 

The Doctor left that part out, as he often did.

The Doctor’s recaps never addressed the _why_ , the details, the spoilers… As if he always wanted to save the whole story for later but never actually got around to telling it.

He was far too busy creating new stories.

But though the Doctor didn’t give the details, he always remembered them. “She gave her life so that people she barely knew could live.” 

_Not much of a life at that point, really..._ Just another featureless, faceless thing, a cog in the Cyber war machine. Condemned to survive but at the cost of everything her life had been about.

She hadn’t accepted it though. The choice the Master had forced her to make: to survive as a cybernetic drone or to hold onto herself, even if that meant dying.

But she _hadn’t_ died.

That was what the Master was trying to show the Doctor.

That the impossible was an illusion. That even when the Doctor couldn’t save everyone, perhaps someone else _could_.

Bill had been rescued.

Not by the Doctor. Not by the Master.

By someone entirely unexpected.

The Doctor hated endings but… He really didn’t know what endings were.

“So, let's be clear,” the Doctor was saying. “Nobody imitates Bill Potts. Nobody mocks Bill Potts!”

Now he was _angry_.

He was taking this entirely the wrong way.

_Oh, Doctor… Why? Why can't you ever just be grateful?_

The Master almost thought he'd have to interject to manage the situation but it seemed Bill was perfectly capable of defending herself.

“Bill Potts... Is standing right in front of you,” she asserted.

The Doctor _wanted_ to believe it.

_Believe it, Doctor. It's not a trick._

It wasn’t the _real_ Bill, true. But Testimony created a stunningly flawless facsimile.

This may not be _quite_ the real Bill but neither was she in any sense a lie.

_I saved her for you._

Just because Bill was out there somewhere in the Universe, living her life, didn’t mean Testimony’s version had no value.

And she had far more faces to offer... Testimony wasn’t limited to merely the Doctor’s most recent companion.

_I saved them all for you..._

“How is that even possible?” the Doctor asked. He sounded weary, defeated.

This wasn't how this was supposed to go.

_Stupid Doctor... Always ruining everything._

Bill caught the Doctor up on how Heather had saved her. The Doctor, being the Doctor, immediately started picking her story apart.

“Where is she?” he wanted to know. “How did you get here?”

Bill couldn't answer that. Testimony's instructions were to act as if Bill was the genuine original, to convince the Doctor of her authenticity.

A losing battle, it seemed.

The Doctor was determined to find fault.

He started scanning her again.

The Master remembered to ask about the sonic screwdriver. The Doctor hadn't made his first screwdriver until his second incarnation.

“It's really a very good job…” the Doctor announced.

_It should be…_

They had spent decades of work on this aspect of Testimony.

“There are only three low-key markers indicating that she's a duplicate,” the Doctor said.

The Master had questions but he couldn't ask.

“I'm not a duplicate!” Bill protested.

Maybe they could still convince the Doctor to accept Bill for what she was. But he was predictably already onto the next thing.

“So, who has been stealing the faces of the dead?” the Doctor wondered. There was a hard edge to his voice.

That was a bad sign.

The Master followed him up the stairs to the control center of Testimony. “Time travel technology, eh?” he said, examining his own machinery. It was in need of a tune up. He'd have to check on that later. “Obviously.”

“From the far future,” the Doctor added.

The Master rolled his eyes, too preoccupied to hide his annoyance. “I know...” Then he looked up. The Doctor had put on his sonic shades.

_Uh oh._

The Doctor was looking _straight_ at him.

Was he scanning him?

_Of course he was._

The Master tried to protest but he had no way to stop the Doctor… He would have to assume that part of the game was up. 

The main control avatar of Testimony had appeared and the Doctor turned his attention to her.

“So, what are you?” he wondered.

“We are what awaits at the end of every life,” she explained. That wasn't _quite_ true but Testimony had been instructed to hide the full truth. “As every living soul dies, so we will appear. We take from you what we need and return you to the moment of your death. We are Testimony.”

The Doctor paraphrased, thinking out loud. “You come from the distant future. You travel back in time, find people at the exact point of death, and what, you harvest something from them?”

“Yes,” Helen's voice replied.

“On behalf of the dying,” the Doctor said, “what is it that we have that the future needs so badly?”

“And what has any of this to do with a World War One Captain landing at the South Pole in the wrong decade?” the Master added. Because that's what the Doctor would say.

“We were returning him to the appointed time and place of his death. An error in the timeline ejected him into the wrong time zone. Now his death must proceed as history demands,” Testimony explained.

Surely the Doctor would take issue with that, right? He was being difficult but he never liked sending people to their deaths, no matter how necessary it was.

The Master decided to point out something the Doctor had missed.

“Who were you?” he asked, staring at the glass-modeled features of his former partner.

“She wasn't anyone,” the Doctor insisted. Impatiently, ignorantly. “She's a computer-generated interface, connected to a multiform, inter-phasing data-bank.”

_Oh, but Doctor… There are more things in Heaven and on Earth._

The Master was done with his friend's nonsense. Thankfully, that was easy to play in character.

“Oh, for Heaven's sake,” the Master grumbled. “Will you put that ridiculous buzzing toy away and _look_ at the woman!”

This shut the Doctor up for a moment.

“You see?” the Master pointed out. “Her face. It's very slightly asymmetrical. If it were computer-generated, it wouldn't produce that effect.”

The Doctor finally, actually _looked_. “You're absolutely right,” he said, surprised. “I should have noticed that.”

_Yes, you should have._

_If you weren’t so focused on killing yourself, maybe you would have._

He couldn’t say _that_ , of course, so he settled for the next best thing. “Well, it might help if you could _see_ properly.” He took the Doctor’s silly glasses off and dropped them on the floor.

The cat was almost certainly out of the bag in terms of the Doctor believing he was speaking to his past self. But it was the principle of the thing, really.

The Captain called out from the bottom of the stairs. “Er, excuse me! Doctor?”

“Get back inside,” the Doctor told him.

_Yes, Doctor. Protect your human._

Maybe he was _finally_ becoming invested in the story.

Captain Lethbridge-Stewart very calmly and reasonably offered to die to bring Bill back.

A stupid move… Apparently something that ran in the family.

Testimony accepted the trade, buying time. Bill protested, as Bill certainly would have.

The Doctor looked to Bill, testing. Not even trying to hide it. “Tell me what to do, then. Bill Potts would tell me what to do.”

Indeed she would. Bill had been a very opinionated young woman. And her avatar, naturally, was no different.

“Do what you always do,” she replied confidently. “Serve at the pleasure of the human race.”

It was an accurate assessment of the Doctor’s behavior over the last couple of millennia, give or take. And he seemed happy to oblige.

“Here's what's going to happen,” he announced. “First, I'm going to escape.”

_Naturally._

He beckoned to the Master. “You, with me.”

The Master didn’t much like his friend’s tone but he set that aside for the greater good. “Where are we going?” he asked. Because now the Doctor was getting _involved_ and the real challenge had begun. The challenge of keeping up with the Doctor’s insane pace.

“Escape is not possible,” Helen’s voice echoed through the ship.

The Doctor, of course, flatly contradicted her. “It is possible, and it is happening, and I'm taking Bill and the Captain with me.”

_No compromises._

That sounded like the Doctor.

And the Master couldn’t resist pointing out the obvious strategic error. Because it wasn’t often he got a turn. “Why are you advertising your intentions? Can't you stop boasting for a moment?”

“Mr. Pastry, too,” the Doctor said. “I could do with a laugh.”

_Uh oh..._

That was rude.

He _knew._

He definitely knew.

Well… That hadn’t lasted long. 

But that was always a possibility.

If the Doctor was willing to play along with the game, as it seemed he was, the Master wouldn’t be the first to tip his hand.

So they’d both go on pretending that the Doctor didn’t know who he was.

_Oh yes… This would be fun._

“Escape is not possible.” Testimony reiterated.

But now the Doctor had someone to fight. And he was making a show of it. “Oh, I'm going to do way more than escape,” he said. “I'm going to find out who you are and what you're doing.”

That wasn’t just for Testimony...

_Yeah… He definitely knew._

“And if I don't like it,” the Doctor decreed, “I will come back and I will stop you. I will stop all of you!”

This… This is what the Master had wanted. The Doctor. In action.

A dangerous game, since the Doctor had no idea what was actually going on... 

But then, what else was new?

The Master suppressed a smile and fed the Doctor a line. “Who the hell do you think you are?” 

The Doctor posed dramatically, like a child pretending to be a superhero. “The Doctor!” he said.

“ _I_ am the Doctor,” the Master insisted sulkily, trying to ignore the Doctor’s endearing moment. “Who you are, I cannot begin to imagine.”

Testimony took her cue perfectly. “Then let us show you, Doctor... See who you will become.”

The Doctor tried to stop her. “No, that’s not a good idea…”

But Testimony summoned up some of the Doctor’s darker moments, as she had been instructed.

The Master had seen all of these memories. He was bothered by some of them but not for the reasons the Doctor was. The Doctor had _lived_ them, probably could scarcely relate to many of them now, possibly denied most of them...

That’s what this was for: _perspective_.

And Testimony piled it on thick.

“The Destroyer of Worlds,” they said he was. “The Imp of the Pandorica. The Shadow of the Valeyard. The Beast of Trenzalore. The Butcher of Skull Moon. The Last Tree of Garsennon. The Destroyer of Skaro.”

So dramatic. Because that’s how people who didn’t know the Doctor spoke about him. With poetry and fear. They spoke of violence and death and catastrophe.

They entirely missed the point.

And sometimes, the Doctor did, too.

“He is the Doctor of War,” Helen’s voice pronounced finally.

And so he had been.

So he had said.

And the Master had argued with him, told him that was nonsense, pressing him unsuccessfully for an explanation as to what that could possibly even mean.

The Doctor had never had an answer, hadn’t felt the need to justify himself at the time.

And then the Time War had ended and he had denied that entire lifetime for centuries.

Until the Moment.

Until Clara.

Until the Doctor had, impossibly, gone back and fixed everything.

It was about time the Doctor accepted his part in the Time War. All the good he had done. How true he had been to everything he’d ever stood for.

“What…” the Master muttered. “What was that?”

The Doctor, maddeningly, didn’t react with either shame or justification. 

He actually didn’t react at all. 

“To be fair, they cut out all the jokes,” he said.

It was true. They had.

As usual, the Doctor opted for action over introspection.

“Do what I do when I do it,” he told his three companions.

No one argued.

They all slipped down the chains holding the future TARDIS and made it back to the snowy ground below.

They headed straight to the nearby past TARDIS, as planned.

Testimony would follow with Clara, tracking Bill’s avatar wherever they went next.

Which was helpful, because the Master truly had no idea where that might be. Giving the Doctor a TARDIS was an event horizon in terms of planning. There was no real way to see beyond that point.

Anything could happen now.

The Plan went the way of all plans when the Doctor got involved: straight out the window.

The Master would do his best to keep up, to prevent the Doctor from doing anything fatally stupid.

And then, once the Doctor was satisfied, he’d make sure it all ended the way it must.

The way fairy tales were supposed to end.


	10. Bliss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this chapter. :)

_Chapter 10: Bliss_

Clara checked her makeup one last time as their car came to a smooth landing outside the museum.

The Master didn't wait for the driver to open the door. He hopped out, extending a hand with ironic gallantry to help Clara out. She took it with a smile, moving the train of her gown to the side as she stepped out of the car and onto the red carpet.

It was opening night at the new Old Earth Museum and all the glitterati of New New York would be there. 

The Master and Clara had come to enjoy the exhibit from a slightly different perspective... Being time travelers made visiting museums slightly hilarious.

Clara suspected her date was also planning to cultivate some society connections but she wasn't especially bothered by that. They both knew he liked to multitask.

They quietly bypassed the photo area. The Master didn't like having his picture taken, for obvious reasons... Clara knew he'd be checking back later to make sure he didn't accidentally show up in any of the publicity shots of tonight. 

That had been difficult for Clara to get used to, having known the Doctor so well. Because anywhere the Doctor went he left the most terrible mess behind. The Master left everything pristine, immaculate, more organized than when he'd arrived... Any mess which might have been created was hidden away, safely out of sight.

They walked into the museum, arm in arm. Clara's eyes shone as she surveyed the gowns, the aliens, the exhibits... She leaned in close to the Master, slightly overwhelmed despite herself. Because she'd _never_ gotten used to this.

She hoped she never did.

"So... What should we look at first?" the Master asked.

Clara surveyed the various signs and arrows: Fashion, Politics, Food, Celebrities, Music, Architecture, Geography, Medicine, Military... She shook her head, at a loss. "It's _enormous._ "

One word caught her eye: _Education_. 

The Master had found something interesting at the exact same moment. He pointed. "How about _that_." 

She looked where he was pointing. Not one of the largest exhibits, clearly. _Television._ She looked up at him, laughing. 

_Of course._

"Go ahead, I'll catch up," she said.

"Really?" he asked, surprised that anything could be more interesting to her than his choice. "Where are you headed?"

She pointed out the Education sign. "Teacher, remember?"

"Ah," he nodded.

"Gonna go see how much they got wrong," she winked. She gave him a quick kiss. "I'll find you in a little bit, ok?"

"Ok," he said. He gave her that look, the look he gave her whenever she left. She still wasn't sure what it meant. 

It was like regret, like fear, like he wanted to follow her... Like he might never see her again... Like he wasn't sure if he _wanted_ to.

Clara hated that look.

"Don't have too much fun without me," she instructed, pointing at him.

The look vanished and he laughed. "You know I can't promise that," he said.

Clara gave him one last glance over her shoulder, just so he'd remember what he was missing, and walked towards her exhibit. She felt his eyes following her and smiled.

Clara was _happy._ She thought he was too... Or as happy as he was capable of being. The straightforward emotions seemed to bore him. Satisfaction made him dissatisfied.

He was afraid of being happy and that fear made him want to run. But that fear also kept him interested.

He was... Complicated.

For someone who planned everything, he certainly enjoyed being thrown off his game. 

For someone who thought about himself constantly, he had very little self-awareness.

And for a self-absorbed, mind-controlling mass murderer, he could be incredibly sweet and thoughtful...

Clara was hopelessly in love with him.

Because Clara was complicated, too...

And maybe life just wasn't that simple. Maybe she didn't _want_ it to be. 

Maybe no one was just _one thing_.

Maybe everyone was a patchwork of different lights and colors and moods... The Master's patches were just a bit more intense than ordinary people's. And darker, overall, certainly... But that made the contrast all the more striking when he did something kind. When he was vulnerable. When she saw how much he cared.

For the few people lucky enough to be on his short list of People Who Mattered, anyway. 

The vast majority of the Universe was entirely disposable to the Master and Clara knew this. They had mutually agreed to disagree on that point.

But recently, Clara had watched him absorb himself in helping the Doctor. She had watched as his list of People Who Mattered grew.

She wondered sometimes what might happen when the Plan was complete. She worried that this might be the calm before the storm. She hoped she was wrong but was determined to be there either way, whatever happened next.

She knew he tried harder when he wasn’t alone.

And Clara didn’t want to go back to the days when she had been wandering, when she’d had to find ways to fill time on her own. When she hadn’t had anyone to share her adventures with.

The Doctor had gotten it right, all those years ago: traveling alone was so disappointing compared to sharing the joys of the Universe with someone else.

Clara couldn’t imagine trying to go back to the days before she had met the Master. Some things, some people, changed your life forever.

You might not expect it, might not be ready for it when it happened… But then, that was _life_ , really. It never went quite the way you expected.

And that was good.

Clara wondered sometimes if the Master knew the full extent of how she felt about him. He didn't like to talk about the things that were important and Clara didn't want to push him too far.

But she was pretty sure he knew.

He was the Master, after all. He must sense how she felt.

She envied his powers sometimes... To know what other people were thinking and feeling seemed like such a luxury.

Because despite being functionally semi-immortal, Clara was still merely human. She could only guess at how the Master was feeling when he didn't want to share... And he often didn't say what he was thinking.

Sometimes she wondered if _he_ even knew what he was feeling.

Clara realized she'd been standing in front of a display of a Twenty-Fifth Century learning machine for the last several minutes.

She moved through the rest of the exhibit, searching for familiarity.

It was strange living in the year Five Billion Something... From the perspective of whoever had designed the exhibit, the years 2000-3000 were so close, so similar that they weren't worth breaking down any more specifically than that.

But to Clara... She remembered 2005 as the year her mother had died. 2012, the year she had started nannying for the Maitlands. 2014, the year she had met Danny.

2013... The year she had met the Doctor.

There was nothing from 2013.

Clara suddenly felt so out of place. 

She wondered if there was a name for that feeling... Time Travelers' Angst, perhaps?

The Master would know. Certainly he and the Doctor were more out of place than she could ever be.

They hadn't even fit in on their own home planet.

She wandered back out into the main hall, looking around for her date. She didn't see him anywhere so she found herself a drink and a table and waited.

She felt a hand on her back as he appeared silently behind her. She smiled without looking up and put an arm around him.

"You alright?" he asked, immediately concerned.

"Yeah," she reassured him, eyes still slightly too shiny. "I am now."

"What is it?" he asked, unable to drop the subject.

"It's just all so... Far away," Clara said. She looked up at him, frowning slightly, trying to explain.

He gave her a sympathetic look, quickly replaced by a slow, mischievous smile. "Not for _us_..."

She laughed, shaking her head. "Doesn't it ever get to you, though? The... _Massiveness_ of it all?"

He frowned, seeming to honestly think about it. "No, not really," he concluded. He knew this was a disappointment to her. "Sorry," he added.

"That's ok," Clara said with a chuckle. She should have known better than to ask him something like that. The Master did everything larger than life.

"Here, let me show you something," the Master said, taking her hand.

"Yeah?" Clara asked, smiling at his earnestness.

"Yeah, come on," he coaxed.

Clara grabbed her drink and walked with him to the Politics exhibit.

He took her to a photograph, a montage relic of Prime Ministers of the Twenty-First Century.

"Look," he said, pointing gleefully.

Clara did and burst out laughing.

"Did you just take me to a picture of _you_?" she asked incredulously.

He grinned, proud of himself.

"You're so _stupid_..." Clara giggled.

"But you're smiling though," he said.

"Yeah," she agreed, grabbing his hand in both her own and leaning against him. They stood together staring at the Master's past. He looked so young. "So, is this picture just going to disappear one day, then?"

"Hm..." the Master considered. "No, I think I'll leave this one. That's the trouble with running for public office: there's really no way to avoid leaving a footprint." He shook his head, frowning in consternation. "That was _such_ a bad idea..."

Clara had to suppress an eyeroll. Because only the Master would self-analyze decisions made during insanity. She could see him getting lost somewhere internally. She put a hand to his face. "I like you better with the beard," she said.

"Me too," he agreed smugly, coming back to the present.

"How was your television exhibit?" Clara asked.

The Master sighed. "Disappointing. Nothing from the 1990s _at all_."

"Sorry," Clara said sympathetically. She knew how he loved his cartoons.

"You know..." the Master said. Clara looked up, knowing that tone. "You and I could do this _much_ better." He gave her a look, eyebrows raised. "Ever thought about being on a museum board of directors?"

Clara laughed, glanced around furtively and responded in a hushed tone. " _Could_ we?"

"I'll take care of it right now, if you want," he said, eyes sparkling. "I saw the museum director around here somewhere..."

"No!" Clara laughed pulling him back as he pretended to leave. "But I mean... Timelines?" Clara asked.

The Master weighed the pros and cons, shrugged. "I think we could get away with it."

Clara laughed at the idea. "You want to take over the museum? Wait, would it just end up being a whole museum about _you_ , then?"

The Master got a delighted look. "Oh, now, _there's_ an idea."

 _Uh oh._

Clara wasn't sure she liked the direction this was headed now.

"The Doctor has Testimony... Or he will, once it's done," he mused. "I should have something too, don't you think? It's only fair."

"I guess it is," Clara had to agree. The Master got weirdly caught up on _fairness_ between himself and the Doctor. But he did have a point. "We'll figure out something for you."

A woman came up to stand next to them. She gazed at the display for a moment, smiling distantly, then drifted away back into the rest of the museum.

Clara felt the Master's hand slip out of hers. She looked up to see him staring after the woman. He looked worried.

"What? What is it?" Clara asked him.

He didn't answer. He turned, eyes scanning the room, the other guests, his brow furrowed.

"What is it?" Clara asked again. "What's wrong?" He didn't seem to hear her. She touched his arm lightly, got his attention. He looked down at her and his concern turned to outright alarm.

He put an arm around her shoulders, frowning around at the room. "Let's get out of here," he said quietly.

"Ok," Clara agreed. She was worried too now. Because something had _scared_ him. And that couldn't be good.

They walked out of the museum. As they waited for their car to show up, the Master remained distracted. He took out his laser screwdriver and moved off a short distance away, scanning for something.

Clara watched, concerned.

She noticed a young woman, barely more than a teenager, approaching her.

"Are you looking for Bliss?" the girl asked.

"Excuse me?" Clara responded.

The girl opened a pouch, surreptitiously. It was filled with little clear patches.

Clara had seen them around at the University: mood patches. Focus and Relax were especially popular among the student body, but they came in countless different flavors.

She'd never heard of Bliss, though.

"No, thank you," Clara said. Suddenly, the Master was next to her again. "I'm ok," Clara told him, but his attention was on the dealer.

"How much?" he asked, taking out a handful of credits.

"Seriously?" Clara said, surprised. He didn't answer. 

Transaction complete, the Master slipped the patch into his pocket. He transfixed the girl with a hard stare and moved closer. "Look at me," he ordered. She did, her eyes quickly going wide and distant and she gave into the Master's will.

Clara looked around. There weren't a lot of people on the street but this was unusual behavior for the Master. Not the hypnotism, but the _publicness_ of it.

He was interrogating the girl, asking who her supplier was, how much she sold per day.

He sighed, swiping a hand across his forehead, clearly not reassured by her answers.

"You will come to the University of New Earth tomorrow," he instructed her. "Find me. Dr. Emil Keller."

"I will find you tomorrow," she confirmed obediently.

"Good," he said. He snapped his fingers and the girl woke. She blinked and walked away, going back to her life.

The Master turned to look at Clara. He was still frowning.

"What was that about?" Clara asked. He didn't answer. Clara stepped closer, took his hand. "Hey... Are we ok?" She couldn’t keep the fear from creeping into her tone.

"For now, but..." he trailed off.

"But what?" Clara prodded.

Behind her, their car arrived. They both ignored it for a moment.

"I think..." The Master's tone was low and serious, as if he was talking to himself. Clara almost couldn't hear him. "I think something _bad_ is going to happen..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This kicks off the pandemic segment of the storyline. Due to the back and forth nature of the narrative, you could skip specific chapters and avoid the pandemic completely. More warnings per chapter, as appropriate! <3


	11. Just Like Old Times

_Chapter 11: Just Like Old Times_

“Take off, now!” the Doctor shouted. “Deep space, anywhere!”

The Master obliged, enjoying the sensation of being at the controls of the Doctor’s TARDIS again.

He recalled the old days at this very same Console, before he had learned to ask politely, before he or the Doctor had realized that the TARDIS was a person, too.

The weeks and months he’d spent in agonized frustration, trying to figure out why he never could get where he planned to go...

He chuckled inwardly.

“The navigation systems don't function properly,” he informed everyone, using the explanation the Doctor had borrowed from him so long ago. Indeed, the Doctor may even have believed it. “I'm unable to program our flight with any accuracy.”

The Doctor said nothing, fully aware by now of how false that had always been.

They’d both learned a lot about the TARDIS over the years. She had been infinitely patient with both of them.

The Master filled the time by making small talk with Bill, turning it into another sexist remark about cleaning.

The Doctor leapt in to interject, guiding the Master to the astral map, pointing out the blinking lights to distract him.

Hilariously, had he truly been the Doctor, that technique would _definitely_ have worked.

“He's you,” Bill smiled. She knew, all of Testimony knew. Every incarnation of the Doctor up though this current one was stored in their database. “He is, isn't he? He's you. He's one of your old faces.”

The Captain was not keeping up. That wasn’t his role in this little drama, so that was perfectly alright.

The Doctor put on his sonic shades back on. 

“Not those again,” the Master groaned. “I forbid it!”

The Doctor, as always, ignored him.

He used his sonic screwdriver to call up a picture of the Testimony control unit. “There you go, I was right,” he said, self-congratulatory. “Asymmetrical.”

“I said that!” the Master pointed out.

“Same difference,” the Doctor retorted.

_Oh, very clever, Doctor…_

He couldn’t contradict the Doctor without dropping the pretense.

The Doctor was trying to get on his nerves.

This was already far more fun than when he had thought the Master was the genuine article…

_Alright, then, Doctor. Let’s play._

Then, as the Master was plotting his next move, the Doctor put his silly sonic shades on the Master.

That was... Unexpected.

The Master had trouble figuring out how to react to that…

He’d never tried them on before. The interface was actually brilliant.

Unsurprisingly.

The Doctor had clearly invented these himself... Who else would design something so beautifully ridiculous?

“If her face was based on a human original,” the Doctor was explaining, “perhaps identifying who that was will tell us what we need to know about Testimony.”

As expected, the Doctor was following the breadcrumbs.

Where he might go next, however, was unclear… There were several options.

“Why am I wearing these?” the Master asked finally.

“Because I love it,” the Doctor said, enjoying himself far too much. “ _Never_ take those off.”

_You sure about that, Doctor?_

The Master effortlessly homed in on something which would force the Doctor’s hand. “What's browser history?” he asked in mock-confusion.

The Doctor snatched his glasses back immediately.

“I'm trying to match her face in the TARDIS data bank, but there's hardly anything in it yet,” the Doctor informed his companions. “We need a bigger database. Possibly the Matrix on Gallifrey.”

The Master’s hearts stopped for a moment. 

Would he really? Was he bluffing...? 

A visit to Gallifrey would cause massive complications, possibly destroy the entire narrative.

The Master rapidly tried to recalibrate, wondering who he could recruit on Gallifrey on such short notice...

It wasn’t a long list.

To his relief, the Doctor quickly backed down. “No. We need something bigger than the Matrix.”

The Master frowned. There weren’t a lot of resources which fit that description.

_Intriguing._

_Where are you taking us, Doctor?_

The Master checked the coordinates as they landed. The end of the Universe, give or take a billion years.

Not the Master’s favorite place and, he was guessing, not an accident.

The center of the Universe.

So... Villengard? 

_Why Villengard?_

The Doctor opened the doors and paused dramatically, framed by the active destruction behind him. “Out there is the most comprehensive database of all life anywhere,” he said. “There is just one little problem.”

Someone had to ask...

“Which is?” Bill said, doing the honors.

“It wants to kill me,” the Doctor said delightedly. He grinned that reckless grin.

The Master shook his head, realizing anew where Clara had picked up that particular bad habit.

They followed the Doctor out into the devastation. The Master had only been to Villengard once and it certainly hadn’t looked like this then. He wondered briefly what had happened. 

Then he glanced at the Doctor and realized he already knew the answer to that question...

There was a rustling all around them, furtive, sinister.

The Master’s skin prickled as he was reminded of something.

“I say,” the Captain said, holding his revolver at the ready. “I think there's something moving over here.”

He walked a little too far and the Master became concerned. Getting the Brigadier’s ancestor killed was definitely _not_ part of the Plan.

Jenny would kill him.

So would Clara.

And Kate wouldn’t ever let that one go if she found out...

“Step away, please,” he tried.

“Probably just rats,” the Captain said offhandedly. “I'm used to rats.”

_Idiot._

_It’s definitely not rats._

_Why would it be rats?_

Had he not seen the moon with a giant, burning hole in it? They were way beyond rats.

Something leapt from the shrubbery, attaching itself to the Captain’s face.

It was a strategically sound attack but there an overt viciousness that sparked an undeniable recognition.

_Oh, Doctor… Where have you brought us?_

The Doctor and Bill rushed forwards, the Doctor sonicking the creature off of the Captain’s face. It scuttled away back into the ruins.

The Master made his way to the Doctor’s side as the Captain gasped for air. “That creature, it looked familiar,” the Master said, trying to keep the accusation out of his tone.

The Doctor looked guilty. Clearly, within a minute of landing, his move had already gone somewhat wrong. Sadly, this wasn’t even a new record for the Doctor. “It's mutated a bit, but yes, I should think it did.”

_Really, Doctor?_

_A Dalek-infested planet?_

What a typically terrible idea.

But he had to hand it to the Doctor: as stupidly dangerous as this was for all of them, he’d definitely won the contest of who could reference their past the most directly.

No story of the Doctor would ever be complete without the Daleks.

And it was frankly inspired in terms of throwing the Master off his game. There was no way to avoid thinking about the War while standing amidst this destruction with the Doctor, surrounded by Daleks.

_Touche._

The Master escorted the Captain back to the safety of the TARDIS, leaving the Doctor with Bill. He settled the Captain in the chair and turned on the scanner to see what they were talking about.

“The biggest database in the galaxy,” the Doctor was saying.

The Master frowned. It was true, the Daleks accumulated information voraciously. But how was the Doctor planning to access it? Dalek encryption was unbreakable, even for the Doctor.

He knew this for a fact. They’d both tried, repeatedly, during the War.

Unsuccessfully.

There was only one person the Master knew of who could do it and the Doctor currently had no memory of her…

For now, anyway.

The Doctor had decided Bill should stay to look after the Captain.

The Master felt a sneaking smile. So, the Doctor was engineering his own scenario now, where he and the Master would brave the dangers of Villengard alone.

As it should be.

“You're lying!” Bill’s avatar said indignantly. “You think I'm a duplicate, a trick.”

“I don't know what I think,” the Doctor admitted.

The Master frowned, perturbed. What did the Doctor imagine was going on, exactly?

Did he seriously still think this was all some sort of trap?

“If there's the slightest chance that Bill Potts is alive and standing in front of me, then I will not, under _any_ circumstances, put her life in danger again,” the Doctor openly admitted.

The Master felt a twinge of something unpleasant, remembering how fresh Bill’s fate still was for the Doctor.

But that’s why Bill was _here_. 

That’s what Testimony was for.

He’d already fixed it. The Doctor was just being slow to pick up on that.

Bill argued, holding her own. “Seriously? You're looking right at me and you don't even know I'm here.”

It was something the Doctor had said to Clara after he had regenerated into his current body.

Testimony was clever.

The Doctor couldn’t totally appreciate the reference: that conversation was missing from his memory.

_Hang in there, Doctor._

_Just play the game a little longer._

_The real prize is still ahead..._

Regardless of whether or not the Doctor remembered saying this himself, the words made an impression. Because his answer was unexpectedly direct.

“Correct,” he confirmed. “I ask you to respect that, and respect me.”

Bill swore at him, calling him names, calling him stupid.

The Master laughed inwardly. Bill did have a tendency to do that when she got frustrated.

But the question was… How would the original Doctor react to this?

And he got the _best_ idea.

“As I have always respected you,” the Doctor pointed out.

_Perfect._

The Master opened the TARDIS door to interject. “If I hear any more language like that from you, young lady, you're in for a jolly good smacked bottom.”

Because the Doctor might rightly deny many of the characterizations the Master had placed on him in the last half hour. And he may have forgotten the things he had said to Clara. But he would certainly remember saying _that_.

The Master closed the door again, leaving the palpable awkwardness behind him.

He wondered what the Doctor would make of the Master quoting an event he hadn’t been there to see...

Had he figured out yet that Testimony was the Master’s creation?

“Can we just never, ever talk about this again?” the Doctor said to Bill.

The Master rolled his eyes.

Sometimes trying to have a meaningful conversation with the Doctor was like pulling teeth.

But Bill’s answer was perfect. “I hope we talk about it loads. I hope we spend _years_ laughing about it.”

And the Doctor smiled.

“Come back alive,” Bill instructed.

“Be here when I do,” the Doctor returned.


	12. The Future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter starts the Pandemic segment of the story. It covers a few chapters, so I will warn for each chapter. I did not start this story intending to write about a pandemic but in the course of researching this, I realized we have exact dates for Testimony and the disease which wiped out most of New Earth. (For how this ends, see _Gridlock_.)
> 
> That was a year ago and a whole different world.
> 
>  **TRIGGER WARNING: WORLDWIDE PANDEMIC with MASS CASUALTIES.** If you have been directly affected by the current **COVID-19** pandemic, please be aware this chapter might be triggering for you.
> 
> For everyone who has been affected by this ongoing tragedy, whether you or a loved one was infected, or are struggling mentally, emotionally or financially from this situation, or are on the front lines fighting to keep society afloat and save lives... My heart goes out to you. Stay strong, be safe. You aren't forgotten. <3 <3 <3

_Chapter 12: The Future_

The next day, Clara stayed close.

The Master hadn't spoken on the ride home, hadn't said a word to Clara since then.

He was deep in his head, trying to solve whatever problem had arisen at the museum.

Whatever threat Bliss was.

He had spent the car ride back to the University scanning the mood patch he'd purchased.

Then he'd gone straight into his TARDIS. Clara followed him. He headed to his lab. She turned back, knowing he didn't like to be disturbed when he was working.

Clara changed out of her gown and washed off her makeup. She grabbed a blanket and pillow from her room and curled up on the couch in the Console room.

She didn't sleep much.

She woke from a shallow, dream-riddled doze as the Master came back through the Console room.

He stopped when he saw her looking at him. His eyes were dark, his face troubled.

He turned away wordlessly and stepped through the doors back out into his office.

Clara got up and turned on the scanner. She watched him.

He waited, doing busywork. He was worried, distracted.

Clara wanted to help him but she didn't know what to do.

So she just _watched_.

It was a few hours before the dealer from the museum showed up. She was confused. The Master quickly quieted that confusion.

Clara had to wonder what that felt like, to have a compulsion you didn't understand to go find a man you didn't know...

It didn't sound pleasant.

Clara found the Master's mind control habits equal parts fascinating and repulsive.

It was a dissonance she was still learning to live with.

He asked the girl more questions. Then he asked her to take him to her supplier.

Clara ran out of the TARDIS.

"What are you doing?" the Master demanded, alarm and anger warring in his expression.

"I'm coming with you," Clara said. She felt desperate, somehow. She was afraid.

"No," he said flatly. "You're not." He pointed at the TARDIS. "Get back inside," he ordered her.

Clara shook her head stubbornly. " _No_. I know you don't want to tell me what's going on. I don't like it, but I can accept that. But you are _not_ going to run off to do who-knows-what... Not without me."

"It's too dangerous," he glared. "You're not coming."

"But maybe I could help if you'd tell me what's _wrong_ ," Clara retorted, her voice rising in frustration.

The dealer stood, waiting, eerily silent.

"Not yet,” the Master said stonily. “I'll explain when I'm sure."

"And I'm supposed to just... _Wait_?" Clara asked.

"I'll be back in a few hours," the Master answered.

"I'm _scared_ ," Clara choked out, tears prickling in her eyes. "You're scaring me."

"You'll be ok,” the Master said, still withdrawn. “I promise. I won't let anything happen to you, Clara…” He ran a hand through her hair, his eyes lingering on the Quantum Shade tattoo on the back of her neck. His gaze met hers again, resolute. “Not ever."

" _Please_ let me come with you." She was crying.

"No," he said. His tone was gentle now but left no room for argument. "I need you to stay here, where you'll be safe. I need to _know_ that you're safe. Do you understand?” He gave her a look that was _almost_ apologetic. ”I'll _make_ you stay, if I have to."

Clara didn't doubt that he meant it.

"Please," he begged, so quietly. There was a look in his eyes that she'd never seen before. He was _terrified_.

That look broke Clara. She hugged him. Pulled him close like she'd never let go. Kissed him like she'd never see him again.

Still, the girl whose name Clara didn’t know stood there, separate from the emotion of the scene. Not even a witness. Unseeing, unthinking.

Clara wished she could forget the they weren’t really alone.

"Please, promise me you'll come back..." Clara whispered, gripping the Master’s arms, unwilling to break contact. "Please."

The Master nodded. There were tears in his eyes, too, she saw now. Clara wasn't sure which of them had started crying first, who was reacting to whom. 

"I'll come back, I promise" the Master said dutifully. "Stay in the TARDIS, ok?” he said, putting a hand to her cheek. “You'll be safe there, whatever happens."

Clara nodded her agreement. She let him go, reluctantly. He left with the dealer and Clara went back into the Master's TARDIS.

She sat on the couch and cried. 

She didn't even know why.

She wondered if this is how the Master was feeling as he went about his business, trying to solve the problem...

She wondered how she'd know if he'd forced her agree to stay behind instead of just asking her nicely...

She probably wouldn't.

She waited for hours in the timelessness of the Console room.

Eventually, exhausted, she fell asleep.

She woke to see the Master was back, looking down at her.

Clara sat up, adrenaline jolting her into wakefulness.

"What is it? What did you find out?" she asked him urgently.

His face was frozen, his eyes resigned.

"The world is going to end," he told her with unnatural calmness.

Clara's vision grayed out for a moment as a wave of panic swept over her.

"Clara... _Clara!_ " As her vision returned, the Master was kneeling in front of her, holding her shoulders, stopping her from falling forwards. She was clutching his arms, her grip vice-like.

"What's happening to me?" Clara asked, trying to hold the terror at bay.

The Master was visibly baffled for a moment and then the lightbulb went on. "Ahh... Oh, no."

"What?" Clara asked fearfully. "What does 'oh, no' mean? Don't say 'oh, no' to me right now," she pleaded.

"I think... You're feeling what I'm feeling," he told her. The admission clearly made him uncomfortable.

Clara sobbed out a panicked laugh, covering several emotions in one reaction. "You're feeling _this_ ?" She shook her head at the controlled image of the man in front of her. "Right _now_?"

"Yeah..." he grimaced. "Sorry, I thought I had this under control. Bad habit."

She closed her eyes, feeling the hurricane of emotion. Everything he kept inside. Everything he felt he had to hide. "How do you stand it?" Clara asked him.

"Usually by fixing the problem," he told her, looking back at her with concerned eyes.

Clara laughed through the tears. "That's not what I meant."

"Ok, well you can explain what you did mean in a minute,” the Master said, sidestepping her explanation. “For now, just breathe, ok? I know you don't need to but just... Trust me. In. And out."

Clara looked at him, felt his hands against her face, grounding her. 

She breathed and let her eyes close.

_In._

_Out._

_In._

_Out._

Clara opened her eyes. She was leaning back against the couch now. The Master was sitting next to her, holding her hand, looking at her, still concerned.

"Better?" he asked anxiously.

"Yeah, better," Clara confirmed. The fear was still there but it was manageable now. "How about you?" she asked him.

"I'll be fine," he smiled, as if the question was a foolish one.

"Ok, so..." Clara said. "What do you mean, the world's ending?"

He sighed, shifted away from her, trying to be alone again. "New Earth is doomed."

Clara closed the distance between them. "Doomed, how?"

"A virus," he said. She could see the fear in his eyes now. Deep down. "From the Bliss mood patches."

“But…” Clara said. “How can a drug be a virus?”

The Master turned to her with a confused grimace. “Who said it was a drug?”

Clara shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just assumed.”

The Master shook his head. “It’s not a drug. It’s a highly adaptable nanovirus that targets the neurochemical centers of the brain. And it’s going to adapt into one of the deadliest diseases ever known.”

Clara gupled, realizing what that meant coming from the Master. "Can you stop it?" Clara asked him.

He shook his head. He looked tired. Clara worried about that. "I already tried, a few years back. Before I met you. I sent a message to the Doctor,” he explained. ”I thought he'd fixed the problem but it seems it was never going to be that easy... All I did was delay the plague by five, maybe six years."

Clara understood. "You're saying it's a Fixed Point."

"It would seem so, yes," he said ruefully.

She thought about what this meant for Testimony, for the decades of work he had put into saving the Doctor. "But the Plan... All your work."

"I know," he said with a heavy sigh.

"How long do we have?" Clara asked him. She needed to guide him, to ask him the questions he would forget to answer otherwise. He still wasn't used to doing these things with another person.

"I don't know exactly," he answered. "Not yet." He shrugged slightly, lost somewhere in his head. "Maybe a few months? Less than a year, certainly."

Clara felt his fear rising again. "But _we're_ safe... Right?" She hoped the answer was _yes_ , hoped reassuring her would reassure him.

He met her gaze, indirectly. "We're going to need to leave, one of these days... In a hurry."

Clara’s eyes widened. "Is there _anything_ we can do?"

"Probably not, no," he said, rubbing his own eyes.

Clara started to comprehend the scale of what the Master was talking about. "It's _everyone_? The whole planet?"

He sat back, crossed his arms. "Yeah." He glanced at Clara and shook his head. "I'm sorry I brought you here."

Clara reached up to turn his face towards her. She smiled at him and received just the ghost of a smile in return. "It's ok. I wanted to come." She kissed him on the cheek and moved in closer to lean her head against his shoulder. "Hey," she said. "If we can just leave... Why are you so scared?"

There was a pause before he answered, his voice low. "This isn't the first dying planet I've been on. Usually there's not an easy way out... Bad memories."

Clara put her arms around him. Her brain struggled again with the reality of how many people had died in fear and pain because of the Master. She wondered for a moment if any of those dying planets had been his fault.

But their pain didn't make his any less real. 

Just as his didn't make them matter less.

That was how the Master thought... _Either/or. Black/white._

Clara knew better. It _all_ mattered. 

Which made it so, so much more complicated.

It was a moral contortionist act Clara had let herself in for deliberately, fully aware of how challenging it would be.

So she did what she always did when she wasn’t sure what the best long-term strategy was: she focused on the present, on being kind. She hugged the Master closer and thought about what the Doctor might have been without anyone by his side.

Everyone needed someone to support them, to care for them, to _stop_ them. The Doctor and the Master more than anyone.

"Are you going to try to find out more?" Clara asked.

"Yes," he said, putting an arm around her. "I have to."

She squinted, thinking about the next step. "You're going to go to the future, right? Just to look?"

"Yes," he confirmed. She heard the smile in his voice. He liked it when people knew what he was going to do next.

"Now?" Clara said.

"Yes," he answered. "We don't have the luxury of waiting. Or guessing."

Clara thought about it, _really_ thought about it... An entire planet, all dead. 

People she'd seen walking down the street for the past few years... At the cafes, at the stores... Mothers with their children at the parks. Students in the library.

Everyone who’d ever attended one of her lectures.

People she'd met whose names she'd forgotten, people she'd smiled at in passing, people she'd never even seen... Never _would_ see.

 _All_ of them.

No one to mourn them. No one to bury them.

She felt sick.

"I don't think I can do that," Clara gulped.

The Master looked down at her and shook his head slowly, frowning. "I'd never ask you to..." He seemed genuinely horrified by the idea.

"Can I just stay in your office until you get back?" Clara asked, her voice breaking. Even just knowing what was outside the TARDIS doors when they landed was more than she felt she could handle.

She had thought she was stronger than that.

"No," the Master said. He turned her face towards his, gently. He was smiling slightly, distantly. "I need you close. Just in case I'm wrong. In case we don't have a few months."

Clara looked into his eyes, questioningly. She felt so sleepy all of a sudden. And she realized what his solution was... 

_Of course._

Dating the Master meant you risked taking a lot of unexpected naps.

He was going to _keep_ her: Set her aside like a fragile doll on a high shelf, lock her away like a treasured valuable.

Clara would rather he just _asked_. That was a concept they were still working on... With mixed results.

Because the Master didn't like leaving things to chance, _especially_ when it came to the few people in the Universe he actually cared about.

Regardless of his methods, Clara _loved_ being on that incredibly short list.

She knew that was dangerous, knew there was an aspect of egoism there... Because he made her feel so _special_. It made perspective difficult sometimes. One of them needed to maintain perspective. 

And that person would never be the Master.

It put a lot of responsibility on Clara. But she was ok with that.

She didn't always like the things he did. They disagreed about means and ends sometimes. 

Sometimes, he even listened to her.

And Clara really, _really_ loved that: Being the one person in the Universe who could get the Master to _stop_. To reconsider.

Because, most days, even _the Doctor_ couldn't do that.

He had been behaving since she'd joined him on New Earth, for the most part. She was fairly certain some of that was for her.

He was _trying_.

It wasn't something she could ask him about or thank him for... He preferred to do things in secret. He was most comfortable in the shadows, particularly when it came to his good deeds.

What Clara could give in return was trust. When he wasn't killing anyone, wasn't hurting people, when he decided that he needed Clara to stay where he put her... She could give him that.

For most of the Universe, trusting the Master was a very bad mistake. Often their last.

But for Clara it was a choice she had made, a thing she _owed_.

So she gave in willingly, let her eyes close.

She felt his arms around her. She snuggled into them as he lifted her easily, as if she weighed nothing.

But she worried. She wanted to help. It wasn't good when he was alone.

"Be careful..." She couldn't tell if she had managed to say the words out loud but she heard him answer.

He kissed her forehead. "Promise," he said.

Reassured, Clara let herself slip away.

She slept. 

She _knew_ she was asleep. 

She didn't dream...

She _waited_.

It was strange.

Time had no meaning but at some point she felt him lie down next to her, felt his arms around her.

She smiled in her sleep, glad he was finally resting.

Clara woke in her own room in the Master's TARDIS, unsure of how much time had passed.

She'd never know exactly... Not for sure.

There was no way to check, not in the TARDIS.

The Master was seated on the edge of her bed, holding a cup of coffee.

With a sigh, Clara sat up and took the mug, feeling weirdly disconnected from reality.

"How long was I asleep?" she asked, her own voice sounding strange in her ears.

"A couple of weeks," he told her. 

Clara looked up, shocked, then just shook her head, realizing it wasn't as big a deal as it sounded. 

Clara didn't age, didn't have anywhere to be... Taking a two-week nap inside a time machine was _odd_ , certainly, but he hadn't really stolen anything from her.

Even if she'd slept for years, it would have been nothing.

Clara's life was weird these days.

"Sorry... It took a little longer than I expected," he said, brushing her hair back from her face, drinking her in as if he hadn't seen her in decades. She chose to believe it _hadn't_ been more than the couple of weeks he had admitted to and smiled back at him. "It might take you a minute to wake up properly," he informed her.

She nodded, taking another sip of her coffee. It was exceptional, as always. He always found the best coffee. "So, what did you find out? How long do we have?" she inquired.

"Five months," the Master said.

"Is that all?" Clara responded, dismayed.

He nodded. He was certain.

Clara frowned, shaking her head. "Can we even finish Testimony in five months?" she asked.

"It'll be close," he replied grimly.

"Ok, then." Clara shook away the last of the sleep cobwebs, set down her coffee. "What can I do to help?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon note: So this is the first time it's come up explicitly in a fic, but the Master accidentally projecting his emotions to others is a Time War problem. More on that in upcoming fics.
> 
> Halfway through. Thank you for reading. <3


	13. The Past

_Chapter 13: The Past_

The Master and the Doctor walked through the rubble together. The Doctor seemed to know exactly where he was going.

That may or may not have been the case. But where the Doctor went, the Master would follow.

Looking after him, trying to stop him from dying for a little longer. Trying to convince him that his friends still needed him, that he hadn’t lost as much as he thought he had.

They stayed close.

As they had during the War. 

As they had in days long, long before that.

The memories crowded in thick. The Master wondered if the Doctor was remembering the same things.

The rustling slowly died out around them.

The Master wondered why…

What were they walking towards that would frighten Daleks away?

“These creatures,” the Master said. “What are they?”

He knew. But part of the point of this was to get the Doctor talking.

“Old friends of ours,” the Doctor answered, “but they've really come out of their shell.”

_So it seemed..._

Why was Villengard crawling with Dalek mutants with no armor?

That question disappeared with everything else as the Doctor inhaled sharply in pain and leaned against one of the broken stones.

“Are you alright?” the Master asked, slightly panicked.

They’d have to wrap this up. The Doctor was running out of time.

The Master helped him to a seat nearby.

“I died a few hours ago, then I refused to regenerate,” the Doctor said, his tone flippant. “It catches up with you, you know, it's like a big lunch.”

“I did exactly the same,” the Master said, thinking of the Doctor’s first regeneration. Of his own pending regeneration.

“I know you did,” the Doctor confirmed. “But _why_? I don't remember this. Why are you refusing the regeneration?”

He wanted to hear the story.

_Good, Doctor. Listen closely._

“Fear,” the Master said simply. “I'm afraid.” He thought of how long the Doctor had delayed regenerating for the first time. He thought about his own first regeneration. “Very, very afraid,” he amended. “I don't normally admit that to anyone else.”

The Doctor didn’t tend to discuss his fears. Certainly not at the time in his life which the Master was portraying. The Doctor hadn’t spoken to any of his companions about what was coming, what he was avoiding.

He’d faced that moment alone in the end.

He should have asked for help. Just as he should have in his current situation.

“Don't worry,” the Doctor said, being clever. “Technically, you still haven't.”

_Ha!_

_True._

The Master seized his opportunity. “Why are you?” he asked.

He knew this too, of course.

The Doctor responded by standing with difficulty, preferring the physical pain to an honest discussion about his stupid decisions.

_Oh no, Doctor… You’re not getting away that easily._

And that’s when the laser fire started.

_Frustrating._

He’d been so close to getting the Doctor to have an _actual_ conversation.

Instead, they ran, scrambling through the ruins, trying to find cover.

The Doctor kept shielding his friend with his own body.

A useless gesture.

There was no reason to think that the laser fire would magically stop once the Doctor was hit.

He’d done this during the War, too...

Always trying to be the one in the line of fire.

 _If you die protecting me from the danger that_ _you_ _put us in, Doctor, I swear I will kill you myself..._

The Master identified the source of the weapons fire. “There's something in that tower!”

“Must be my friend!” the Doctor said.

“Why do you call him your friend?” the Master couldn’t resist asking.

“He's got a great big gun,” the Doctor replied. “Are you suggesting I insult him?”

_That is your usual response, isn’t it?_

The Doctor shoved the Master to the ground as a bolt hit far too close.

And for just a moment, they were both right back in the War...

Which had clearly been the Doctor’s intention in coming here.

 _I hate you_ , the Master thought with a glare.

The Doctor shot him an annoyingly knowing smile and broke away. He ran forward, headed straight into the line of fire.

The Master nearly had a double heart attack.

“Just scan me,” the Doctor shouted, in full view of the tower. Totally exposed.

And the Master froze, unable to move, fearing he was about to watch his worst nightmare play out right in front of him.

The Doctor let whatever was in the tower scan him, talked until it opened the door to let him in.

And, knowing the Doctor, it was even more dangerous inside than out here with the Dalek mutants.

But the firing stopped and the Doctor headed towards the doorway.

The Master just shook his head. Trying to keep the Doctor alive really was impossibly stressful.

_Stupid, reckless idiot..._

And, to top it all off, the Doctor wanted to go up alone. The Master tried to argue.

The Doctor went back to pretending they were the same person, talking about the paradox of their double death ripping the Universe apart. “You know how much hard work it is putting it back together again,” he said.

_Wait…_

_What?_

After the Time War, the Doctor had had to reconstruct Time and Space from scratch.

The Master had snuck back a couple decades ago to help, surreptitiously. 

That had been complicated. 

And worth it.

But he hadn’t thought the Doctor had known he was there...

When had figured that out?

_Fine, Doctor. You win._

_Go up there alone._

The Master would stay behind and arrange for an emergency exit as needed.

The Doctor disappeared into the tower and the Master called Clara.

“Testimony Central, Clara speaking,” came Clara’s response. “How may I direct your call?”

The Master laughed. Clara’s jokes were stupid and often poorly timed. But somehow they were still always funny.

“Hi,” he said. “Everything good up there?”

“All according to Plan,” she responded evenly. “How are things going down there?”

The Master shook his head. “We might need an emergency teleport out of here.”

“Uh oh,” she said, sounding unsurprised. “The Doctor?”

The Master sighed, staring up at the tower window. “Still an idiot.”

“Well, that’s hardly an unexpected development,” Clara pointed out reasonably. “I’ll home in on your location.”

“You might need to be quick,” the Master told her.

“Don’t worry, I’ll pull him out if he does anything too stupid,” she reassured him. She paused for just a moment and her voice got softer. “You good?” she asked.

Clara put a lot of meaning into those two syllables. She knew what he was going through. 

Indeed, at this exact moment was the only one who _did_ know.

It was strange having someone besides the Doctor who was able to understand him. But he was getting used to it.

And he really liked it.

Clara was so quick, so insightful… She filled in the blanks seemingly without effort.

And when she was missing something she didn’t give up until she had answers.

After decades of learning about each other, they didn’t need a lot of extraneous words to communicate what she was really asking.

“Yeah,” the Master replied quietly. “Almost done.”

“See you soon, then,” Clara said. The words were casual, the tone anything but.

Clara could somehow fit a thousand emotions into even the most passing comment.

The Master smiled, closing his eyes briefly, picturing her face.

“Bye,” he smiled.

“Bye,” Clara smiled back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for the concept of the Doctor reconstructing the broken Universe after the Time War goes to IncomingAlbatross. I added the Master, because that's what I do. :)


	14. Change of Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, I missed an update day! My apologies... <3
> 
> This one continues the **Pandemic** storyline, but is more Non-Specific Impending Doom than anything else. Read at your discretion, but there's nothing overtly Pandemic-related here. Though there is a fairly intense conversation about treating people with respect, even if you know they won't live much longer either way.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who is following this story!! Thank you all for reading!! <3 <3

_Chapter 14: Change of Plans_

Helen Clay came into work on Tuesday morning to find the lab seething with activity, like an anthill which someone had carelessly stepped on.

She surveyed the chaos in bewilderment before heading to her assistant's desk.

"What's going on here?" she asked, a pillar of calm in the storm.

Her frazzled assistant looked up from a massive mess of papers. "Professor Clay, thank the _Galaxies_. Your partner has lost his mind."

Helen raised a dubious eyebrow. "I highly doubt that. What's he done?"

"He's stepped up the timetable, increased our work tenfold... There's no _way_ we can keep up with this. Just look!" He gestured around at the scrambling staff.

Helen shook her head at the drama. "Settle down, I'll go talk to him. I'm sure he has a good reason for all of this."

"Or he's finally just _snapped_..." the young man muttered.

Helen knew the staff liked to tell stories about the mysterious Dr. Keller who came and went as he pleased. But she didn't much like her assistant's tone. "You'd do well to remember that he does sign your paychecks," she pointed out.

"Yes, sorry, Professor," he replied, cowed.

"Panicking won't help your situation, nor will inappropriate stress responses,” she said. “Calm down, keep working. I'll deal with Dr. Keller."

"Yes, Professor."

Helen made her way to her partner's office. Despite her reassurances to her assistant, she had no idea what could have happened to prompt this abrupt change of pace.

Everything had been business as usual yesterday...

But there was no telling what had transpired in the time between yesterday and this morning for Dr. Keller. Helen had initially believed he was merely a _former_ time traveler. 

She'd come to rethink that assessment.

What he was truly doing on New Earth, she had no idea.

As she neared his office, she heard voices, arguing.

She frowned. _No one_ argued with Dr. Keller. 

Not _ever_.

Then she smiled as she discerned the owner of the second voice. No one except Clara Oswin Oswald, it seemed...

And she was holding her own.

"You _can't_ do that," Clara was saying.

Helen shook her head. She'd never heard anyone talk to her partner this way. She knew she should walk away but... She found herself waiting, curious as to what these two might disagree about. She could just barely see both of them through the cracked-open door.

"I _can_ ," Dr. Keller contradicted Clara. Helen saw her give him a look. "It's the only way!" he added emphatically.

"It's not _right,_ " Clara said.

Helen saw her partner spread his arms, raising his eyes to the ceiling, aggravated. "It doesn't _matter_."

Clara didn't back down in the slightest. "It matters to _me_ ," she told him.

He turned away, sighing angrily, then swung back around to look at Clara. " _Why_? You know as well as I do that this will all be over in a few months." Helen started to wonder what it was they were arguing about, exactly... " _This_ is how we complete Testimony. What difference does it make to them?"

He'd turned away, shaking his head. Clara followed, ducking back into his field of vision. "Going home to see their families? Getting to make their own choices for the next five months?" She was the one gesturing emphatically now. Dr. Keller had gone still. Helen could only see his back but she could tell he was tense.

"But we _need_ them," he said quietly, intensely. The stress in his voice was audible. "There's not enough _time_..."

Clara looked down, thinking. She crossed her arms, looked up at Dr. Keller. "No," she pronounced.

He froze. " _What_?" 

Despite her decades of working with Dr. Keller, Helen shrank away despite herself at his tone. It was unfamiliar. And _terrifying_. 

Clara, however, seemed completely unintimidated. She lifted her chin defiantly, staring him dead in the eyes. "You heard me," she said. " _No_. Find another way."

His voice was quiet but there was danger in it. "There's not another way."

"Really?" Clara smiled at him skeptically. "I bet we could come up with something."

He answered like a petulant child. "I already _did_."

Clara shook her head dismissively. "Something else."

Helen saw her partner’s fists clench. Then abruptly, he gave up. He turned away to lean wearily on his desk, palms flat, head down, shoulders up. This Dr. Keller was so different from the calm, collected researcher Helen had collaborated with all these years.

Was this what he was like when he wasn’t at work?

Was this what Clara dealt with on a daily basis?

Helen knew how much they cared about each other, she had seen it. They had small disagreements from time to time but nothing on this scale, not that Helen knew of anyway.

She glanced at Clara, wondering what could be so important that they would argue like this. She was surprised to see that Clara looked at least as tormented as Dr. Keller did. 

Clara Oswin Oswald was easy to read. She broadcast her emotions with every fiber of her being. Right now, she was poised on her toes, biting her lip. Like all she wanted to do was to go to him, take it all back, hug him and tell him she was wrong. But she took a deep breath and held her ground.

Dr. Keller was oblivious to the struggle taking place next to him. "Fine," he said. He didn't sound angry anymore, just _tired_. Uncharacteristically discouraged. "So, what do you suggest? What's your magical solution?"

Clara walked closer then, put a hand on his arm gingerly. "You need more man hours... Hire more staff," she suggested.

He straightened up, crossed his arms. "We do have a budget, you know."

Clara was rubbing his arm, absently almost. She rolled her eyes. "Please, like that's an obstacle for you."

Helen smiled to herself. It certainly wasn't. Her partner was a miracle-worker when it came to acquiring funding.

" _And,_ " he said, thinking out loud now, "they'd need to be trained. How long do you think that'll take? For them to get it _right_?"

Clara frowned up at him thoughtfully. "There have to be shortcuts for that." He looked around, dramatically annoyed. Clara just laughed. "Come on! You're working with the most advanced memory technology _ever_. You're telling me you can't find a way to rig that into some kind of training system?"

He stopped, eyes narrowed, considering. Then he started to smile. Clara smiled back, eyebrows raised. He chuckled.

And the whole tone of the conversation changed, like a storm had passed.

"You know," Dr. Keller said, moving closer to Clara, "you're _really_ good at this. Ever thought about ruling planets?"

She giggled, putting her arms around his neck. "How about we deal with this first, ok?"

He put his hands on her waist, looking off to the side calculatingly. He smiled, pleased with whatever result he came to. His expression when he looked back at Clara was filled with admiration. "You know, this might actually _work_... Good idea."

"Well..." she shrugged lightly, humorously. "That's why you keep me around, right?"

"Oh, is that why?" he said, blatantly flirting now. Clara nodded, leaning into him. "I knew there was a reason..."

Helen knocked politely on the door, the time for eavesdropping over. "Pardon me... Sorry to interrupt."

Dr. Keller broke away from Clara, suddenly focused on Helen, eyes sharp as blades. "How much of that did you hear?"

She looked from Dr. Keller to Clara and back again. She raised an eyebrow. "Enough to know that we have a new timetable," she replied calmly.

"Hmm." Dr. Keller considered her answer, seemingly placated by the fact that she wasn't panicking. "Do you have... Questions?" he asked carefully.

Helen regarded him seriously. "Should I?"

Dr. Keller and Clara shared a look. "Probably best if you don't," Clara replied apologetically.

Helen nodded, businesslike as always. "Then, no," she said. She turned back to her partner. "So, I gather that we'll be adding to our workforce?"

"Yes," he nodded, leaning back against his desk, hands in his pockets. He was thinking out loud, planning. "There are going to be some changes around here over the next few months... Anyone who can't keep up is dispensable."

Clara cleared her throat dramatically.

Dr. Keller laughed, shook his head at her. "Calm down. I'm doing it your way, remember?"

She shrugged, satisfied, and went to take her usual place on the couch.

Dr. Keller watched her for a moment, distracted.

Helen broke into his train of thought. "You certainly have everyone down in the lab a little over-excited," she said.

"Well..." he said, moving to take a seat in his desk chair. "They'll have help soon enough."

"Any chance we could lighten their workload before that help arrives?" Helen inquired. "Say... Immediately?"

He looked up at her, perturbed but taking her request seriously. "Should we?"

She remembered the chaos in the lab, grimaced slightly. "I think so, yes."

He sighed, clearly unhappy with the situation. "If we must, then. We'll make it up with the new hires..."

As Helen watched, he was already gone. Shuffling through papers, deep in thought, completely absorbed in his work.

"Keep me in the loop," she said, heading towards the door.

He looked up, seemingly surprised that she was still there. "Of course," he said, immediately looking down again.

She turned to smile at Clara as she left and was surprised to see Clara looking at her with the oddest expression. Her eyes were wide. She looked... 

Helen couldn't find the right word.

"Are you alright?" Helen asked, deeply concerned.

Clara looked down, guilty, tried to force a smile. "Yeah! Yeah, fine."

"Just let me know if there's anything either of you need." Helen reached down to put a friendly hand on her friend’s elbow. Clara looked down at it, eyes getting even bigger, almost horrified. Helen pulled her hand away, perplexed by the reaction.

"Thanks..." Clara said, still trying to smile though she now looked on the verge of tears. "Really."

"Anytime," Helen assured her kindly. This seemed to upset Clara even more.

Helen was barely out the door when she heard Clara jump up from the couch. Helen paused in the hallway, unable to resist listening for just a moment longer.

She could just see the desk through the doorway. Clara was kneeling on the floor in front of Dr. Keller's chair, looking up at him pleadingly.

Dr. Keller peered down at her, his eyes so far away, still lost somewhere in his work.

"Her?" Clara asked quietly. 

Helen saw her partner frown. 

" _Just_ her..." Clara begged. Tears were streaming down her face. "Please?"

For some reason, Helen suddenly found herself very afraid... Too afraid to stay and listen to the answer to Clara's plea.

She walked back to the lab. The nameless fear followed close behind.


	15. Bill

_Chapter 15: Bill_

The Master wandered through the rubble which had once been the great Weapons Factories of Villengard.

He thought about the past, about the future.

And he thought about the present… The Doctor up above in the tower, facing some unknown danger in order to get answers about Testimony.

Anyone else would just have _asked_.

But that had never been how the game had worked.

And miles further up above, somewhere in orbit, Clara waited, poised to save the Doctor should his investigations take him too far from safety.

Something half-hidden in the vegetation caught the Master’s eye. Something very, very familiar.

He pulled out a piece of a Dalek.

“Out of their shells….” he mused.

Whatever was in that tower, it was stripping Daleks of their armor and setting the creatures inside loose to roam the planet.

But _why_? 

What would do something like that?

He lifted a large piece of Dalek casing, examining it for clues.

It was old, degraded.

Dalekanium was made to outlast nuclear explosions.

Whatever was going on… It had been going on for a _long_ time.

He heard a noise behind him, like a finger run along the rim of a glass.

_Testimony._

He turned to see Bill Potts.

“Oh,” he said. “Hello, my dear.”

_What was she doing here?_

“You're the first one, yeah?” she asked without preamble. “Like, the _original_ version of the Doctor.”

_Of course…_

Testimony was curious.

Testimony was dedicated to the Doctor, to collecting information about him.

And Testimony’s baseline persona had been borrowed from Helen Clay. She had always pursued answers with a single-mindedness which would have been obsessive if it hadn't been so impeccably professional.

But this wasn't something the Master had prepared for, to sell himself as the Doctor alone.

And they were in the end stages of the Plan now… There really wasn't time for this.

“My dear, you should get back to the ship,” he suggested. “This place isn't safe.”

“You're the one who stole the TARDIS and ran away,” Testimony said, ignoring him.

“The Captain might be needing you,” the Master said, avoiding her probing gaze.

She dismissed this immediately. “Nah, the Captain's fine,” she said. She’d left him frozen in Time or in a trance state no doubt. “Why did you do it?” she asked, dark eyes hungry for information.

_A difficult question…_

One the Doctor would avoid.

“Oh, I'm sure your Doctor has explained,” he responded.

“I'm not even sure he remembers,” Bill said.

There was a gap in that day, certainly… But the Master knew for a fact that the Doctor _did_ remember.

But this was a conclusion people often came to about the Doctor: that just because he didn’t discuss his past, he didn’t have one, or had forgotten it.

It was a misconception the Doctor actively encouraged.

It couldn’t be further from the truth.

“There were many pressing reasons,” the Master replied evasively.

He thought of his own memories of that day, of the events leading up to the Doctor’s flight from Gallifrey...

He’d made Testimony too inquisitive.

But then, how Testimony had turned out had been a surprise to all of them.

“I don't mean what you ran away from,” Testimony clarified. “What were you running _to_?”

The Master had to smile. “That's rather a good question,” he remarked to Bill’s avatar.

“Questions are kind of my thing,” Bill shrugged with mock-humility.

It was true. Bill had pestered him with endless questions for an entire decade on Floor 1056.

“How are you with answers?” Testimony asked. She wouldn’t be brushed off this time.

Well… He’d do his best.

The Doctor’s motives at the time hadn’t been entirely clear to himself, not yet.

“There is good and there is evil,” he said, describing the Doctor’s persistently childish view of the Universe. “I left Gallifrey to answer a question of my own. By any analysis, evil should always win,” he continued, remembering the endless arguments he and the Doctor had had about the practicality of the Doctor’s choices. “Good is not a practical survival strategy.” 

It really wasn’t. 

The Doctor had a truly dismal record in terms of his own survival. This current situation was just the most recent in a long line. 

He’d have been dead a trillion times over if it weren’t for the various people over the centuries who had stepped in to stop him, to drag him to safety despite himself. 

And sometimes, predictably, they had ended up dying in his place. 

“It requires loyalty, self-sacrifice and, er… Love,” he mused, thinking of Clara and what she had sacrificed. Thinking of River Song, who had died to save a future with the Doctor which she had already lived. 

Thinking of the time he himself had died for the Doctor... 

He was getting off topic. 

“So, why does good prevail?” he asked rhetorically. It didn’t, of course. But the Doctor certainly seemed to believe it did. “What keeps the balance between good and evil in this appalling universe? Is there some kind of logic? Some mysterious force?”

There _was_. 

One stubborn idiot in a blue box. 

And an army of people behind the scenes, just trying to keep him alive...

 _Team Doctor_ , as Clara liked to say.

In two thousand years, the Doctor had never seemed to pick up on the full extent of how the format truly worked.

Would “Bill” know the answer?

Indeed she did.

“Perhaps there's just... A bloke,” she posited.

“A _bloke_?” the Master spluttered.

“Yeah,” Testimony said. “Perhaps there's just... Some bloke. Wandering around, putting everything right when it goes wrong.”

That was an _excellent_ description of the Doctor.

“Well,” the Master smiled, “that would be a nice story, wouldn't it?”

“That would be the _best_ ,” Bill said, eyes shining.

He’d almost forgotten how much Bill liked stories...

But life was so much more complicated than Bill had ever wanted to believe.

“But the real world is not a fairy tale,” he had to say. It was something he’d often tried to remind the Doctor of, over the years.

Eventually, he’d given up.

And now here he was… Trying to prove the exact opposite.

Because, as stupid and clearly flawed as this philosophy was… The Doctor _needed_ to believe it in order to keep being the Doctor.

Thus the Master found himself on a planet covered in pieces of Daleks, his next regeneration imminent, discussing philosophy with a copy of the Doctor’s companion whom he had lived with for a decade and then converted into a Cyberman… Trying desperately to turn fantasy into reality.

All for the Doctor.

Because the Doctor just had that effect on people. 

Testimony seemed to be thinking something similar. “You dash around the Universe trying to figure out what's holding it all together, and you really... _Really_ don't know?” she asked, incredulous.

“You know me in the future,” the Master pointed out. “Do I ever understand?”

“No,” Bill said, accurately. “I really don't think you do.”

He really didn’t. All that people sacrificed for him. How foolish and pointless it would have been for anyone else.

How completely, wholly necessary it was for the Doctor.

“Everyone who's ever met you does,” Testimony asserted, possibly with more authority than anyone else ever had. She stepped forward, wrapping the Master in a warm hug which was meant for someone else. “You're _amazing_ , Doctor. Never forget that,” she said. “Never, ever.”

“Well, that's very kind of you,” the Master said, wanting her to let go.

“We just needed to understand you, Doctor,” Testimony explained.

_Good luck with that…_

The Doctor was gloriously incomprehensible.

So much so, that even the data-bank AI specifically designed to house the story of the Doctor’s journey still had questions.

She dropped the image of Bill, becoming the basic glass avatar.

“A spy,” the Master said, stepping back and feigning fear. “A spy in the camp.”

“No, not a spy,” Testimony said, turning back into Bill. “I'm Bill Potts, but... I'm part of Testimony now.”

As were all of the Doctor’s friends.

Because the Doctor was right, everything had to have an end.

But there was always a loophole.

That emptiness in his friend’s eyes, the weight of loss… That was what the Master was fighting against today.

He couldn’t save everyone the Doctor had ever met, not literally.

But he could do the next best thing: a sentient library, a photo album which could speak, which _cared_ for you. Which could sit with you when you were lonely and reminisce about the good old days.

A Testimony to the man called the Doctor.

A Testimony to how much the Master valued their friendship.

A gift which spoke for itself.


	16. Watching

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings for this chapter. 
> 
> To everyone out there dealing with the very real and expanding health, financial and social crises: stay safe, stay strong. Speaking out for those who can't speak for themselves, caring for the sick at risk to yourself... Your actions make this world a better place for all of us. You are an inspiration and I hope to hear your stories someday. <3 <3

_Chapter 16: Watching_

Dr. Keller hadn't been exaggerating when he had said there would be a lot of changes at Testimony.

He withdrew almost completely from the Project. Always somewhat reclusive, he now never left his office, never spoke to anyone.

Clara became the point of contact and final arbiter on disagreements and difficult decisions. Within a couple of days, she was officially hired on as a consultant and became acting Director with little fanfare.

She was _very_ good at it.

Hiring started immediately. Within a week, they had twenty times the staff they'd been working with previously. Clara made a schedule which had the lab fully staffed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Helen went home for the weekend and returned to find Clara waiting in her office. Clara took her to a nearby lab space which had previously belonged to another department. Now, apparently, it had been co-opted as part of Testimony. Inside, Dr. Keller was making some final adjustments to what turned out to be a new training system.

Helen examined it, professionally curious. 

After a cursory examination, she looked up her partner, awestruck. It was one of the most beautiful pieces of machinery she'd ever seen.

It was so advanced she could barely understand what some of it was for.

She wanted to throw her schedule to the winds and spend the entire day just learning about that machine...

"You set this up over the _weekend_?" she asked her partner. He merely shrugged, like it was nothing. Helen turned, wide-eyed, to Clara.

Clara smiled a weary smile and nodded a confirmation. Helen just shook her head. She and Clara shared a look, both helplessly impressed with the unstoppable genius of the man next to them.

He didn't see their moment, standing back from the machine, scanning for anything he'd missed, eyes razor-sharp. After a moment, he turned to Clara.

"Ready?" she asked.

He nodded, looked at Helen. "Start bringing the lab techs," he instructed.

"Me first," Clara broke in. He frowned. "You promised, remember?"

"You haven't tested it yet," Helen realized. "You're going to try it on yourself, without any trial runs? That seems... Unsafe."

Clara just smiled, her eyes moving to Dr. Keller as he glared at her, clearly displeased. "Trust me, it's the safest way." He sighed and rolled his eyes. Clara looked back at Helen. "I'll be fine” she said confidently. “It'll work. Go get the first of the staff members. Give us like... An hour?"

Dr. Keller gave another shrug, signalling that estimate was close enough.

"See you in an hour, then," Clara said brightly, shooing Helen out of the lab and closing the door.

Helen spent that hour explaining the forthcoming changes to the staff, welcoming the new hires.

When the hour was nearly up, she went back to the training lab. She knocked softly and opened the door.

Clara was seated in the chair, leaning forward. Dr. Keller was down on one knee in front of her, hands wrapped around her head. Their eyes were closed.

Telepathic species weren't common but neither were they unheard of in the varied post-expansion climate of the Galaxy.

And suddenly, Helen understood how Dr. Keller always got his way.

She'd assumed he was a sub-species of human. He still could be, perhaps... There were endless variations of homo sapiens out among the stars. 

But he'd barely aged in the decades she'd known him. He had time travel capabilities which seemed to be independent of the established system. He never talked about where he'd come from. He had telepathic powers which almost certainly extended to some form of active mind control.

Helen pulled the door shut, quietly, wondering what species he was. 

She waited two minutes, leaning against the wall, searching her mind for anything, anyone who might be the same as him.

She came up with nothing.

Of all the people she'd met, he was absolutely unique.

There was one species that fit... 

But they were all gone. Just stories now.

Still... 

Helen put that thought aside for later.

She knocked again, louder this time, waited for a response.

She walked in to see they'd separated. Her partner was now standing, one hand on Clara's cheek, looking down at her with something between fondness and annoyance.

"You're late," he said to Helen, moving to lean against the wall, hands going into his pockets.

"Sorry," Helen apologized smoothly. "How was the test run?" she asked Clara.

"Total success," Clara said happily, jumping up from the chair. "I know all about memory tech now," she grinned.

Helen looked Clara up and down. "No side effects?"

"None," Dr. Keller answered.

Helen couldn't help herself. "How can you be sure?" she asked.

Dr. Keller narrowed his eyes at her.

Clara interjected. "Just trust us, it works perfectly." She glanced towards the door. "So, who's next?"

"Ah," Helen said. "That would be me."

"Really?" Clara asked.

"We'll need to explain the process to the staff. That will be easier if we've both been through the process ourselves."

"That's a good point," Clara agreed. "Alright then, sit down."

"What's it like?" Helen asked, curious.

"It's like..." Clara faltered. "It's hard to describe. You just get a bunch of information dumped into your head, all at once."

"Elegantly put," Dr. Keller snorted.

Clara just laughed. "So I'll be running the process. He's going to stay and supervise to make sure I don't get anything wrong. Then we'll do a few together, train a few more employees so we can start running the machine full time until everyone's up to speed. Make sense?"

"Perfect sense," Helen agreed.

Helen took a seat in the machine and Clara hooked up the leads.

“Ready?” Clara asked.

“Ready,” Helen agreed.

Clara turned the machine on and everything shifted. Helen understood why Clara had had difficulty describing the process. It was as if part of her brain had been walled off and a massive construction project was taking place on the other side.

Helen found it fascinating and couldn’t wait to analyze the readings and details later.

After an indeterminate amount of time she was ejected from the mental holding pattern and opened her eyes to the brightly-lit lab. The wall in her head was down and an entire library of new information was now available to her.

For a moment, Helen blinked wordlessly. Clara was standing off to the side, arms crossed, face serious, one fingernail locked between her teeth.

And Dr. Keller was right in front of her, regarding her thoughtfully.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

Helen took a second to assess. “Fine,” she concluded. “No ill effects, as far as I can tell.”

“Good,” Dr. Keller said. His gaze was strangely intense. Helen found herself unwilling to look away. He leaned in closer. “Relax for a second. I just need to make sure...”

He reached forward towards her. Helen, somewhere far away, realized she was about to have the same experience Clara had had minutes ago.

She wasn’t afraid, which may have been due to her partner’s telepathic influence. Or it may have simply been the massive curiosity which was drowning out every other reaction.

She catalogued her experiences as they occurred...

For one long moment, it was as if she was seconds from falling asleep as Dr. Keller’s eyes held hers. Then his hands connected with her head and everything changed. She was pulled away into another place, another state. It was like the hyperfocused feeling she got when she was working on a new research proposal or deep in troubleshooting mode with a malfunctioning piece of equipment.

One thought, one purpose. A rock set solidly in a brook as the water of time streamed past.

But there was no associated task she was trying to accomplish. She was just drifting. _Waiting_. Alone in a small room.

Helen felt instinctively that she was missing something interesting… That she was being left out.

She set out to discover what was going on.

She looked around, found a door. She tried it but it was locked.

So she searched until she found a small window and looked outside into her own mind.

Something was _happening_...

Something _amazing_.

Helen looked out the window into her own mental landscape. An incredible experience in and of itself. But there was something else going on. Or rather… There was _someone else_ in her mind.

And this other mind, her partner’s mind… Suddenly, calling him Dr. Keller just seemed _wrong_ … This other mind was… _Indescribable_. Enormous and glittering with life, a galaxy compared to the single star of her own consciousness.

Helen forgot all about the beautiful complexity of the memory training machine. Because it was _nothing_ compared to this.

Helen would have done anything to learn more about the mind which she was currently viewing from a distance.

She tried the door again. Still locked.

All the discoveries she and the Testimony team had made, all the studies of the mind, of memories and consciousness… They were _so_ _small_.

She should have been studying _this_. The man she’d been working with all these years, side by side, was a billion times more fascinating than anything they’d discovered together.

She leaned against the window, watching the shifting actions she couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

He let her watch.

She intuited that he was checking her memories, her character, making certain everything was intact and working properly.

She and her team had spent years perfecting a device to do exactly this. And here he was, doing it all on his own...

_Incredible._

There was such _precision_ to the motions. She could have watched forever, trying to discern the patterns, the purpose behind it all. It was like unfamiliar music, or poetry written in a language she’d never even heard of.

Beautiful, enchanting, incomprehensible.

And on a scale which was truly terrifying.

Helen felt _tiny_. 

And she wanted to know _more_.

Then, abruptly, she was yanked back into wakefulness.

She blinked in the lights of the lab, disoriented, disconnected.

She remembered… 

What did she remember?

_Oh, yes._

Clara had hooked her up to the machine. 

Then the memory device had done its job. And then… 

And then?

Something… _Amazing_.

It slipped away in a millisecond, irretrievable, and she was left stranded in the present.

As her mind and eyes refocused, Helen saw that Dr. Keller was kneeling in front of her, his head turned towards Clara. There was a look on his face which she had never seen him wear before. It was joy, so honest and pure it was almost childlike.

“It _worked_ ,” he said to Clara. “It actually _works_.”

Clara smiled back at him, eyes full of admiration and some emotion much deeper than that. “ _Of course_ it works,” she said. She had clearly never doubted it would.

He closed his eyes, dropping his head with a long sigh of relief.

Then he stood, turning away from Helen without a word.

Clara caught him by the arm as he stepped towards the door. “Hey. You should get some rest,” she said softly.

He shook his head, the joy gone again. Now he just looked tired. “No time,” he said.

Clara let him go, watching with worry in her gaze. She shook herself, turning back to Helen. “You good?” she asked.

“I think so, yes,” Helen said. She felt as if she’d missed something for a moment… But the feeling quickly dissipated and she chalked it up to a momentary aftereffect of the memory process. “Let’s get started.”

And so they did.

Testimony started running full speed, 24/7.

No one heard from Dr. Keller anymore. Occasionally, in passing by his office, Helen would see him deep in charts and papers at his desk, or standing at his whiteboard writing out calculations she couldn’t begin to identify.

Sometimes Clara was there, hovering, or trying to get him to eat.

He barely seemed to notice she was in the room.

With Helen and Clara at the helm, the Testimony Project moved forward at breakneck speed, years of progress accomplished in mere weeks.

Helen wasn’t certain where they were headed with such urgency but she started to feel like she was just along for the ride.


	17. Kind

_Chapter 17: Kind_

Clara stood in the guts of the Testimony vessel. It was hovering over Villengard, following Bill’s avatar.

Testimony could go anywhere and anywhen. Even the Doctor couldn’t outrun them for long.

Of course, having an avatar along for the ride had simplified the task of finding him.

Clara homed in on the Doctor’s life signs.

He was in a tower with someone else.

She asked for an analysis of the second lifeform.

A _Dalek_...?

No wonder the Master had sounded so concerned.

Clara activated Testimony’s surveillance systems, listening in. Ready to freeze time and pull the Doctor out if he did something too… Well, Doctor-y.

“You know what?” came the Doctor’s familiar Scottish accent. 

Clara smiled sadly. She missed the Doctor.

It had been years, now. Decades.

She missed him every single day.

She knew Testimony hadn’t been created for her, that the Master would have returned the Doctor’s memories to save him even if she and the Master had never met.

Even if he hadn’t cared about her.

Even if they hadn’t fallen in love and spent decades together on this project.

But, as things had turned out, Clara liked to think that some of this was for her, too. 

After this, once the Doctor remembered her again, she would have to pay him a much-anticipated and long-overdue visit...

They had a lot to catch up on.

“You're a bit of a legend these days,” the Doctor continued, “but not everyone believes it. People don't think that it could happen. That someone like you could turn against your own kind, because your kind don't do that.”

Clara was distracted from her efforts to puzzle out what the Doctor was up to by the sound of a weapon firing. She quickly checked the Doctor’s life signs: still steady.

The Doctor, unphased, kept talking. “Because people don't believe there could be any such thing... As a good Dalek.”

And Clara smiled, suddenly realizing who he was talking to.

“I am not a good Dalek,” came Rusty’s angry voice. “ _You_ are a good Dalek.”

Rusty was still alive it seemed, after countless millennia. And apparently the Doctor had known this, because he had come straight to Villengard.

He’d kept track of Rusty. Clara wondered why.

She wondered if it was because of her…

All the time Clara had spent trying to get the Doctor back... Had the Doctor been doing the same, in his own way?

He’d held on, impossibly, to the scraps he had left of his Impossible Girl.

He’d held on to Missy, a shadow of the friend he had known.

But how much more had he done?

Had he looked up other people they had both known?

This Doctor was oddly detail-oriented and incredibly stubborn.

He couldn’t have taken to forgetting large chunks of his life with equanimity. He must have tried to fix it.

But counteracting a neural block was impossible. Until, of course, the Master had created the technology from scratch designed to do just that.

Decades of time devoted to a single project, to something which should have been utterly impossible.

The Doctor could do nearly anything but he simply didn’t have the patience for something like that.

Luckily, he had friends who did.

The Master had dedicated the rest of his current regeneration entirely to the Doctor. To Testimony, to fixing the Doctor’s memories... To saving the Doctor’s friends forever in a database of memories, to helping the Doctor through his darkest moments...

And to spending time with the Doctors he had missed, when he could. Getting to know his friend again, recovering from the War and the damage it had done.

Not that he had thought of it quite like that, of course...

The Master didn’t really have the self-awareness to realize that he was repairing their relationship as he worked to repair the Doctor’s memories.

And he acted like it was all a matter of course. Like the countless hours of work involved in creating Testimony was the only logical course of action.

The truth was, there was nothing even remotely logical about it. It was kind and sweet and selfless and maddeningly stupid.

And Clara was one thousand percent in support of the Plan.

She hoped the Doctor might figure out how much work his friend had put into this. But on the off chance that he didn’t, she had every intention of letting him know someday.

The Master wouldn’t like her telling… But he wouldn’t have to know.

And he didn’t get to be in charge of everything.

“Now, Rusty, you know that I'm dying,” the Doctor was saying, “and if you don't want me to go off and die somewhere else where you can't watch, you're going to have to stop shooting at me.”

Clara chuckled. The Doctor was holding his own impending demise hostage to keep himself alive?

That was a brilliant move...

 _Very_ Doctor.

Rusty agreed.

“It's been a long time,” the Doctor commented. “Remember the good old days, when I got miniaturized and I climbed around inside you?”

Clara smiled nostalgically. _She_ remembered.

The Doctor’s version of that day would be full of holes, however.

For the thousandth time, Clara wondered what that was like for him.

He would remember Rusty, remember agreeing to help the “good” Dalek, repairing it, trying to get it to understand the truth of right and wrong.

But he wouldn’t remember asking Clara if he was a good man. Or the moment when she’d had to slap him to snap him out of his stubborn preconceptions.

He wouldn’t remember the _why_ of any of it.

It must be confusing and frustrating to live like that.

_Not much longer, Doctor. Promise._

“You taught me to hate the Daleks,” Rusty said.

That hadn’t exactly been the intended outcome but it was scarcely the worst lesson to come away with.

“Billions of years ago,” the Doctor responded. “What have you been up to since then?”

Clara giggled. Was he making small talk?

“Destroying Daleks,” Rusty declared triumphantly.

“Yes, all the ones who come here to murder you,” the Doctor added. “Yes, I saw the mess outside.”

Clara pulled up a visual of the surface of Villengard. _Mess_ was an accurate description.

“Why are you here?” Rusty asked impatiently.

Clara leaned forward, interested to hear the answer.

“As a Dalek, you are linked into the Dalek hive mind. All Daleks are. Biggest database I know.”

Clara nodded. She had vague recollections of being a Dalek herself. The wealth of information available to her had been truly astounding.

“I'd like to access it,” the Doctor said.

“Why would I help you?” Rusty grated.

It was such a reasonable question, especially for a Dalek. Rusty really had learned.

“Because helping me, in any way, does something wonderful: it hurts the Daleks.”

In her travels with the Doctor, Clara had seen him do this countless times: negotiate by finding the one thing the other person wanted and using that to obtain an agreement.

Then Clara had gotten to know the Master and she’d seen him do the _exact_ same thing.

The strategy was identical though the flourishes were different.

She wondered who had learned that move first.

She suspected it was the Master. He was naturally gifted in that area.

They’d spent lifetimes learning from each other, accidentally and on purpose...

It was impossible at this point to imagine one of them without the other.

For her or for them, it seemed. The Master had focused solely on the Doctor the moment he realized that there was a real danger of losing him forever.

And the Doctor had thought the Master was dead or lost forever for a few centuries... Those had been some of the worst and most dysfunctional years of his life.

They needed each other.

Clara was just here to help, any way she could.

Rusty agreed to the Doctor’s terms, of course.

The Doctor transmitted the facial structure of the Testimony central control unit to the Dalek and Rusty searched through his database, quickly finding a match.

“Professor Helen Clay, University of New Earth, year five billion and twelve…” the Doctor read aloud, the name meaning nothing to him. 

Clara smiled, remembering her poised friend, her days on New Earth. Those had been good years. 

“There's footage,” the Doctor said. “Can you run it?”

Rusty obliged and Clara heard Helen’s voice talking about Testimony. It sounded like a pitch. Five billion twelve… The project was just getting off the ground at that point.

“The Testimony Foundation combines the resources of time travel, with the latest in memory extraction techniques,” Helen said. “The near-dead can be lifted momentarily from their time streams, their memories duplicated, and then their physical selves returned to the moment of their dissolution without pain, distress or any recall of the process. Now the dead can speak again. We can hear the Testimony of the past, and channeled through our glass avatars, they can walk among us again. This is Heaven on New Earth.”

In terms of a twenty-second summary of what Testimony was about, it was actually very good.

At least, the public version of the story.

“Oh,” the Doctor spoke up, sounding surprised. “It's not an evil plan!”

Clara laughed aloud. It was so outdated for him to assume that anything involving the Master automatically had to be an evil plan.

However, the Master would probably be flattered by that assumption.

“I don't really know what to do when it isn't an evil plan,” the Doctor mused.

“You say _thank you_ ,” Clara informed the empty room.

She reached towards the controls to send a request for a time freeze but Testimony had beaten her to it.

“Well done,” Clara smiled. Testimony had initially been envisioned as merely a tool. She had turned out to be an invaluable ally instead.

And more than that. Testimony was part of the family. 

That had been an unexpected development.

But then, additions to the family sometimes were.

“Why did you stop it?” the Doctor asked, already bored in the five seconds since the video had paused. “Rusty?”

“He didn't stop it,” Clara heard the Master say. “They've frozen Time again.”

“Not everything's evil, Doctor,” came Bill’s voice. “You're not the only kind one in the Universe.”

It was a good reminder for the Doctor.

Testimony wasn’t evil.

Testimony had been created solely out of kindness.

The Doctor still didn’t understand the full picture...

But he would, soon.

The last scene was set to play out.

Clara disconnected the audio link with a smile and prepared for the next step.


	18. The End of the World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, readers: **PANDEMIC WARNING** for this chapter. This is when the virus hits New Earth. Not as heavy as Chapter 20 will be, but very Apocalyptic vibe and direct discussion of a Pandemic killing the entire world. Please read with caution.
> 
> To all my fellow human beings... Stay safe, stay hopeful. I can't imagine what some of you have gone through and are going through now. We rise or fall together and I remember that every day. <3

_Chapter 18: The End of the World_

The Master and Clara sat in their usual box at the Long Island Memorial Theatre.

The five months were essentially up. Any day now, Bliss would hit a critical mass and evolve into a killer.

Everything was backed up and ready to go but there were always loose ends to tie up and the Master was trying to make use of any time he had left before New Earth went from being a bustling hypermetropolis to a planet-sized graveyard.

The show played out on the stage, dramatic, fast-paced. A string of scenes, numbers, moments telling the story of a life long ended.

The music was good. The production was reasonably faithful to the original, considering. 

But the Master wasn’t watching the play. He was working. 

He hadn’t even wanted to leave his office but Clara had refused to go without him. And she had been so excited when he had bought the tickets for her last year...

It seemed like a lifetime ago now.

The play was _Hamilton_ , a Broadway musical from the early Twenty-First century. In fact, it had become wildly popular in the last year Clara had spent alive on Earth and Clara, it turned out, was a fan. When the Master had discovered this, he had made a side trip to save the score and soundtrack for posterity. He’d hidden them in a place where they could be found just before Clara’s birthday in the year five billion twenty-eight.

She’d squealed very loudly when she read the news of the play being unearthed. She knew immediately it was a gift for her and she’d hugged the Master way too tight and said _thank you_ about fifty times at top speed.

He worried sometimes about her feeling homesick. Humans weren’t really built to be so far from home for so long. And she certainly hadn’t expected to leave forever on the day of her death.

Not that most people did, he supposed.

They went back to Earth sometimes, of course. But he knew it wasn’t the same. He preferred to bring _home_ to her in whatever ways he could.

He looked at her now, leaning forward in her seat, eyes sparkling, mouth silently forming the words along with the actors and felt he’d made a good decision.

He’d done that right, at least.

A lot had gone wrong recently.

He was _tired_. He hadn’t slept in months, working every moment to snatch Testimony from the jaws of the approaching Fixed Point threatening to devour his decades of work.

There was still a lot more to do... But Testimony was finally stable enough to move forward without the University resources he was about to lose forever.

Still, he was driven to keep arranging details for as long as possible, restless and unable to sleep until the Point actually arrived. In case he had missed something. In case something else went wrong.

And meanwhile, Clara was in danger every moment she was on New Earth.

He’d wanted her to leave. He’d thought about confining her to the TARDIS, many times. But she would never have forgiven him… They had rules and one of Clara’s was that he had to hear her out and that no matter what happened, he wasn’t allowed to take her memories. 

Not under any circumstances, barring her specific permission.

So that avenue was closed to him.

There were other rules. Clara was eternally coming up with more. Two of her more recent additions were “no summoning demons” and “never, ever, _ever_ ” any cigars.

He’d explained that the cigars had been a phase but she had adamantly insisted on a verbal promise.

He’d obliged.

Clara generally got what she wanted.

And Clara wanted to be actively involved in setting up Testimony, despite the danger. 

Truthfully, her help had been invaluable.

So Clara stayed and the Master worried. He wasn’t used to having another person to protect, a fragile human being, no less.

He wondered how the Doctor dealt with that stress.

Because the Master worried every second she was out of his sight.

It was a new feeling for the Master... And he absolutely _hated_ it.

The only other person whose safety he’d ever had to consider, aside from his own, was the Doctor.

And at least the Doctor could look after himself.

Well… 

Sort of.

Sometimes.

But at least there was a little more leeway there. The Doctor could regenerate. If Clara died she would just be... _Gone_.

It was a sickening thought.

And she seemed so _careless_ about her own safety. As if she didn’t quite understand how little stood between her and death. Actual, permanent, irreversible _death_.

No walls, no armor. No barrier at all really. Just a veil, tissue-thin.

Technically, she had already gotten herself killed with her reckless behavior. Clearly, that experience had taught her absolutely nothing.

Sometimes he wondered why he put up with it, why he let Clara stay. Life had been so much simpler when it was just _him_.

And then every time he thought about bailing out, every time things became so complicated that he felt he couldn’t bear it for another minute, every time he was nearly certain that _anything_ was better than the constant torment of knowing he might lose her at any moment… Clara would turn around and smile at him.

And everything would become so simple again.

Galaxies revolved around that smile.

He’d literally reshape the entire Universe if it would keep Clara smiling.

As if she’d sensed his train of thought, Clara turned to see him watching her. She hooked both her arms around his own in a mini-hug and leaned her head against him.

Clara was very into hugs.

To be fair, she was _very_ good at them. 

_“Look at where you are,”_ the actress on the stage sang. _“The fact that you’re alive is a miracle. Just stay alive: that would be enough.”_

The Master watched Clara for a moment longer. Her face was illuminated by the glow of the stage lights, eyes shining brightly, one corner of her mouth pulled up in that irrepressible smile. She’d worn a gown with old-fashioned design flourishes. It was velvet, a deep, crimson red. 

Red really was her color.

Even if he hadn’t been busy, the Master knew he never would have been watching the play… He would have been watching Clara.

He almost pitied the rest of the audience: they were missing the real show.

Satisfied that Clara was happy despite the imminent Apocalypse, the Master kissed the top of her head and went back to his work.

The warning came from nowhere, the intense prickling of an impending temporal watershed point.

The Master stiffened, eyes scanning the theatre, marking out the Bliss patches on nearly every patron.

 _“Everyday you fight like you’re running out of time,”_ the chorus taunted. _“Are you running out of time, are you running out of time?”_

His skin crawled, hair standing on end as the sensation intensified.

It was a feeling he’d become very familiar with during the Time War. He swallowed the terror, shoving the flashbacks down into the deepest parts of his mind so he could focus on the situation at hand.

There was no time for hesitation. They probably had barely an hour.

 _“I’m doing the best I can,”_ the man on the stage sang.

The Master realized Clara was looking at him again and now she wasn’t smiling anymore.

_Clara._

The terror grew, swelling, trying to burst from its chains.

 _“I know it’s a lot to ask, to leave behind the world you know...”_ the actor added.

He never should have brought Clara here...

_What had he been thinking?_

“Time to go,” he said quietly, meeting her worried gaze.

She nodded wordlessly, and stood. She moved to take her coat but the Master intercepted her hand, holding it tight, pulling her urgently towards the exit. 

_“Look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now,”_ the star said.

 _“Helpless…”_ the woman sang back.

They left the theatre silently, leaving the doomed crowds in their seats, oblivious to their rapidly-approaching fate.

 _“History has its eyes on you...”_ the cast reminded them distantly as they departed.

The Master ushered Clara into a car, his hearts beating fast and fear choking his throat.

It was a five minute ride back to the University. He spent the entire time checking readings.

The virus would be airborne. Clara didn’t need to breathe, thankfully, and the Master could easily do without air for several minutes. But he had to be certain he knew what he was dealing with.

Even Fixed Points could mutate in surprising ways.

He grabbed Clara’s hand again as they landed and pulled her from the car and through the halls of the University.

Everything was dark and silent. Everyone had gone home to their families.

Clara’s heels echoed loud in the empty school as she hurried to keep up with the Master’s pace.

He didn’t slow down.

He turned a corner, heading towards his office and the safety of the TARDIS. A tug at his hand stopped him.

“Wait,” Clara said.

He turned around to face her, every fiber of his being screaming at him to keep moving.

“Helen,” she said, eyes wide and pleading. “You promised.”

Slowly, he nodded. He _had_ promised.

“We’ll have to hurry,” he said. They headed towards Helen’s office, moving even faster than before.

The Master entered without knocking. Helen was seated at her desk, one light on, working late.

Despite the extra staff and Clara’s help, Helen had still ended up with an increased workload.

She hadn’t complained. 

Helen Clay never complained.

She raised her head as they entered.

“I thought you’d gone out for the evening,” she said, though she didn’t seem especially surprised to see them back early. She frowned, noticing their expressions. “Is something wrong?”

“Yes,” the Master said, controlling his tone with difficulty. “Something is very wrong.” He frowned at her questioning look. “You’re going to need to trust me.”

“Of course,” Helen agreed wholeheartedly. She had always trusted him. He’d never given her any reason not to and she never asked unnecessary questions.

He had always appreciated that about Professor Helen Clay.

“You need to leave,” he told her grimly.

“Alright,” Helen responded without hesitation, closing her file. “I’ll need some details.”

The Master closed his eyes for a moment. _So little time to explain._ “Take a holiday. Offworld, anywhere.”

“And when will this need to happen?” Helen asked. She was calm, always so calm. It was usually such an admirable quality. But in this moment, it was the most inappropriate reaction she could have had.

“Now,” he told her urgently. “Tonight. Right now.”

He saw fear bloom in her eyes, deep and instinctual.

 _That_ was the appropriate reaction.

“I’ve never asked you anything…” Helen said, uncertainty creeping into her voice. “Should I be concerned?”

The Master put a hand to his forehead. How could he explain that he was trying to save her, that everyone, _everyone_ was about to die?

He could hypnotize her, tell her to leave. But he’d assumed he wouldn’t need to, not with Helen...

Would Clara be angry if he did that? _Could_ he even explain? Humans tended to react so unpredictably in the face of disaster.

It was hard to focus, hard to find the right words, the ones Helen wanted to hear...

Hard to imagine what might be going through her mind.

Clara, hovering silently behind him until now, stepped forward and put a hand on his arm. He turned his attention to her. She was shaking her head, expression devastated.

He hated seeing her like this.

“She can’t live with this,” Clara said quietly. There were tears in her eyes. “ _No one_ could live with this. _Make_ her go,” she requested.

She’d never asked for anything like that before.

“Really?” the Master said, concerned and relieved. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” Clara nodded. A tear escaped to trickle down her cheek. She turned to Helen. “Sorry,” she said helplessly.

Helen frowned, confused, trying to put the pieces together.

Another moment and she would have. But the Master didn’t wait for that.

“Alright,” he said to Clara. He put a hand to her cheek, wiping the tear away. Then he stepped closer to Helen, leaning across her desk, focusing what little mental energy he had left on his partner. “Hi,” he smiled briefly. “Helen, look at me,” he commanded.

She did. He didn’t give her an option.

He was tired, slow and weak. But this was still easier than explaining the situation in a way she could accept.

And she did genuinely trust him. That was a luxury hard to come by.

He overwhelmed her in an instant.

Even semi-conscious, Helen’s thoughts were still so active. He could sense her mind sounding out his own, always studying, analyzing. Relentlessly searching for new answers.

He remembered when they’d psychically linked so he could make sure the memory training had been a success. She had tested every nook and cranny, every crack and exit trying to get into his head.

It wasn’t impossible.

Psychic links were a two-way street.

That time, he’d blocked her efforts with little trouble.

It had been easier then, before the long months of sleep-deprivation.

Now, he slipped for a moment as he lost focus and Helen caught a glimpse of the truth. He shut her down but felt her curiosity surge.

“Who are you?” she wondered aloud, eyes locked with his.

A good question.

For the first time since they’d met, he introduced himself honestly. 

“I am the Master,” he told her. “And you will obey me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics excerpts are from the Act 1 finale of _Hamilton_.


	19. 1914

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the emotional core of the story. 
> 
> As with all the rest of the TUaT chapters, I haven't changed a single line from the Canon episode. This scene is basically the whole reason I wrote a fic around this episode, because I _love_ watching it from this angle. I hope you do, too. <3
> 
> Enjoy. :)

_Chapter 19: 1914_

The Master stepped back and watched Testimony try to talk the Doctor out of dying.

She was as invested in his survival as the Master himself was, after all.

“There has to be an end, Bill,” the Doctor responded. “For everyone, everywhere.”

_But not for you, Doctor._

_At least, not today._

And not for the people saved by Testimony either. Not really.

The Doctor had called her Bill… Was he finally starting to get it?

The Master had been planning this for a long time but… The Doctor really was being terribly slow at seeing the possibilities of what the Master was offering him.

Not that that was anything new.

All those times the Master had tried to get the Doctor to accept half ownership in the Universe… It turned out he should have just _waited_. Since the Time War, since rebuilding the Universe, the Doctor had stepped in for the absent Time Lords, made himself the final arbiter on all crimes, on history itself.

It had been more than he was ready for, certainly… At first.

And then, for a while, he seemed to adjust to the responsibility.

So much so, that he’d also found himself “accidentally” President of Earth.

 _And_ President of Gallifrey… For the third time.

Only the Doctor would find himself in such an unexpected predicament over and over. 

And only the Doctor would find that he _hated_ it.

He’d been trying to do far too much. The responsibility of watching over the Universe, the burden of maintaining his deathgrip on Clara, the moral restrictions he continually imposed upon himself…

He was _tired_.

Anyone would be.

This was the Master’s solution, to take some of the weight off the Doctor’s shoulders.

So he could let go. Just a little, just for one lifetime even.

Gallifrey was back. They couldn’t really be trusted, of course… But with Rassilon ousted, thanks to the Doctor, things would move slowly there. 

And the Master would need to keep an eye on that situation anyway, for Clara’s sake.

Insisting on running around the Universe in open defiance of your own Fixed Point death was a great way to get on Gallifrey’s bad side.

Fortunately, avoiding Time Lord justice was something the Master had become familiar with long ago. He even liked to think he was a bit of an expert.

Things promised to get very interesting in that department, eventually... But that was a Plan for another day.

Today was about the Doctor.

The Doctor kept trying to go it alone since the War, as if he’d learned nothing, as if no one else had anything to contribute.

He still didn’t see what was right in front of his face: that there were _so many people_ ready and eager to help him.

The Master would make certain he understood that before the day was through.

Although, at this rate, he’d have to just _tell_ him. The Doctor simply was not keeping up.

It was starting to get embarrassing.

But then, focusing all your energy on holding back a neural block _and_ an impending regeneration would do that.

The Master tried to give him a hint at one of the puzzle pieces he’d missed as the Doctor asked to personally return the Captain to the point of his death.

“Everybody's important to somebody, somewhere,” was all the Doctor said. The Master bit back a smile, both at how much the Doctor sounded like Clara sometimes and at the innate irony of the Doctor’s response.

_So important that you haven’t even asked his name?_

_Oh, Doctor._

But that was the Doctor for you. He’d never been especially good at practicing what he preached.

They parted ways, heading to their separate travel machines. The Doctor and the Captain to the present-day TARDIS, the Master to his borrowed, younger TARDIS, Bill’s avatar to the Testimony ship.

Clara would be up there, preparing the Doctor’s final gift.

This part, though… This, the Doctor _did_ need to figure out.

Would he realize where Testimony had taken Captain Lethbridge-Stewart from? Where and _when_?

Would he pull that magical rabbit out of a hat, as he generally did? Create his own fairy tale happy ending in the middle of one of Earth’s most brutal wars?

_‘Do not worry, Little One. He will find his way through the maze you have set for him, as he always does.’_

_“It’s not a maze,”_ the Master thought back at the TARDIS. _“It’s just a chance. One last chance for him to show himself that he can still win.”_

This Doctor deserved one more win.

_‘Can it not be both?’_

The Master sighed, too stressed for the TARDIS’s games.

_“Just get us there.”_

He paused as the TARDIS shook slightly.

 _“Please,”_ he added grudgingly.

_‘Of course, Little One.’_

And the TARDISes spun through the Vortex, back to the cold battlefield, landing smoothly side by side despite the paradoxes slowly tearing her apart.

The Master checked the time coordinates before stepping outside. He allowed himself a moment of relief as he saw that the Doctor had not disappointed.

They were a couple hours away from where the Captain had started.

Such a small difference... But everything to the man who had been about to die in a shell crater on Christmas Day.

And everything to the Master’s sentimental and idealistic friend.

Together, they walked the Captain back to his appointed spot.

“I regret, Captain,” the Master said disingenuously, “that the Universe generally fails to be a fairy tale.”

It had to be said. The Doctor loved proving people wrong. He’d savor his victory all the more for being told that it couldn’t be done.

Testimony explained that the Captain wouldn’t remember his little side trip, that he wouldn’t see them once Time restarted.

The Captain very pleasantly indicated that he had followed none of that, though it really hadn’t been complicated.

It made the Master briefly wish that Archibald was up to his descendents’ caliber. At least they were generally a bit quicker on the uptake.

On the topic of which… They were rapidly running out of time for the Doctor to discover just _whom_ he would be saving.

The Master reached out mentally, nudging the Captain’s concern for his family to the forefront of his mind. It wasn’t difficult. His thoughts were saturated with them.

 _“What will happen to them when you’re gone?”_ the Master suggested.

“One thing you could possibly do for me, if you were very kind?” the Captain said vaguely.

“Oh, anything,” the Master replied. “Name it.”

“My family,” the Captain frowned, eyes falling to the stony ground. “Perhaps you could look in on them, from time to time?”

_Perfect._

“We should be delighted,” the Master said, quite honestly. He remembered the UNIT days with fondness. And then there were the more recent connections… “What's the name?”

“Lethbridge-Stewart,” the Captain said.

The Doctor’s head snapped around in surprise.

So he really _hadn’t_ figured it out.

Did he suppose _all_ English military men were so polite and controlled in the face of fantastic events and impending death?

He definitely needed to regenerate.

“Captain Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart,” the soldier clarified, clearly proud of his unnecessarily long name.

The Doctor moved to stand next to his friend, finally starting to comprehend a fraction of the work that had been put into arranging this.

“I shall make it my business,” the Master assured the Brigadier’s grandfather.

It _was_ his business, these days. Clara had somehow managed to drag him into her extracurricular activities consulting for Kate Stewart.

He wasn’t quite sure how that had come about, in hindsight. He’d never have thought Kate would agree to that arrangement.

He supposed Jenny choosing to marry Kate’s son Gordon had been the deciding factor there. For both Kate and himself.

It gave the Brigadier’s daughter and the Master had enough common ground to forge an ongoing alliance, uneasy as it might be at times.

Because honestly, he wasn’t about to let his niece’s planet get taken over by anyone but him.

And with the Doctor as President of Earth, there really was no need.

“You can trust him on that,” the Doctor added, enjoying the gesture, starting to catch up.

The Master watched the Captain settle onto the icy, blasted ground, staring into the barrel of the gun about to take his life.

The Master remembered another time the Doctor had regenerated, remembered looking down the barrel of a very similar revolver.

He wondered if the Doctor was thinking of the same thing.

And then, just as the bullets were about to fly, just as things were about to end in a way which the Doctor could never accept… The gambit paid off.

A strange sound floated over the trenches, so out of place on the grim battlefield.

Magical. Hopeful. Unexpected.

Unless you knew your Earth military history. Which the Master _did_ and had for many centuries.

Because no one else in the Universe killed each other quite the way humans did.

With such creativity. With such vehement delight.

And no one else would stop to sing in the middle of a war.

The Master had chosen this moment with great care. The Brigadier, the Doctor’s inexplicably wise military friend, hadn’t been available during the first World War, but his grandfather would do nicely.

And this was Christmas.

So the Doctor found himself in a war zone, as he sometimes did. Surrounded by soldiers, his precious human race, murdering each other on the grandest scale possible.

But today, they had a _choice_. Today, the kindest day the Master could find in a long history of pain and death.

No one had told them to stop fighting. No one had pointed out that they all might have been friends had they not been born at the wrong time in opposing countries.

One of those random twists of fate that the Universe was so full of.

But still, these soldiers bizarrely took it upon themselves to change the narrative, in defiance of all sense and convention.

Not permanently, of course. Tomorrow, they would all go back to trying to kill each other.

It achieved nothing in the long term.

It was pointless, really.

Nevertheless, it was exactly what the Doctor was all about. Exactly what he needed to see.

The two enemies loosened their fingers on the triggers of their brutally primitive weapons, looking around them in wonderment.

“I say,” the Captain murmured. “Is that _singing_?”

The other man didn’t understand him, of course.

It was difficult to imagine a world with language barriers. No wonder they fought so much.

“Is that... Christmas carols?” the Captain realized.

“I adjusted the time frame, only by a couple of hours,” the Doctor explained unnecessarily. Just talking. “Any other day it wouldn't make any difference.”

_Good._

He had figured out at last that none of this was governed by random chance.

“But this is Christmas 1914,” the Doctor continued, “and the human miracle is about to happen. The Christmas Armistice.”

And the soldiers climbed from their trenches, white flags waving. Taking one day off to make friends with the men they would have to kill tomorrow.

The Captain, as soon as he processed what was happening, called for a medic for his German counterpart.

The Doctor watched, a smile lurking in his gray-blue eyes.

“It never happened again,” the Doctor said, accurately. “Any war, anywhere. But for one day, one Christmas, a very long time ago, everyone just put down their weapons... And started to sing.”

It wasn’t something the Master would have done. When everyone else stopped fighting, that was when they were at their weakest. That was an opportunity to be seized.

But this moment wasn’t for him. It was for the Doctor.

And the Doctor understood. Because he was smiling a sad, quiet smile

“Everybody just stopped,” he said to the Master, repeating his own plea from mere hours ago. “Everyone was just kind.”

It may have taken a lifetime but the Master had finally found an adequate response.

Some things were too important to be rushed.

“You've saved him,” the Master congratulated his friend gently.

“Both of them,” the Doctor retorted.

_Of course…_

Of course the Doctor would equate this random German soldier with the Brigadier’s grandfather.

The Master hadn’t even thought about the Captain’s opponent. Honestly, he hadn’t even looked up the man’s name.

Slightly annoying take on the meticulously-planned scenario but as long as the Doctor was happy, he’d accept the credit.

“Never hurts,” the Doctor mused, “a couple fewer dead people on the battlefield.”

And with that line, the Doctor perfectly summed up his entire Time War incarnation.

The Master grinned smugly. “So that's what it means to be a Doctor of War,” he teased.

“You were right, you know,” the Doctor admitted happily. “The Universe generally fails to be a fairy tale.”

Indeed… Though the Doctor persisted in his belief that _happily ever after_ was possible for everyone, everywhere.

And that was good.

The Doctor could seldom handle being a realist. It broke his spirit.

The Doctor leaned in close. “But that's where we come in,” he said.

The Master was puzzled for a moment as to why the Doctor had suddenly gone back to pretending they were both the same person. But he never quite understood everything about the Doctor so he just filed it away for later.

And while the Germans and the British played and drew and communicated as best they could, the Doctor and the Master stood together on the cold Earth battlefield and mutually agreed to stop the pretense of who they each were.

They talked about the old days and about the adventures they’d had together more recently.

They talked about bad times and good times.

They talked about family and they talked about the War.

They talked about being stranded on Earth and about unexpected friendships. School days and choices and complicated timelines and desks under the TARDIS Console.

They talked about the things they had shared and the things that they had lost.

They talked about Bill and Missy.

They didn’t fight.

Today was not a day for fighting.

And as the chilly sunset glowed on the western horizon and the soldiers parted ways amicably before heading back to their trenches, the Master turned to his best friend whom he somehow so frequently ended up on opposite sides of, and extended his gloved hand.

With a knowing smile, the Doctor took it, gripped it tight.

The golden light of the Master’s pending regeneration returned, flaring impatiently.

_Not long now..._

“I think I'm ready now,” the Master said. 

He was. This was the final task of this body, planned so far in advance. 

The Doctor seemed surprised for a moment. Had he thought the regeneration was a trick, another illusion?

_No, Doctor, it’s real enough._

This face, born for vengeance and war and rage...

The Master had been reborn scarcely knowing who he was, what it meant to be the Master. Still reeling from the choices which had been stripped from him and the horrors of the Time War.

The Master could have spent his entire lifetime as he had spent those first years: trying to destroy the Doctor, forcing his friend to share his pain.

It was obvious, natural. As if the choice had already been made for him.

And the Master was done making the choices that others expected.

“But I should like to know…” the Master continued. “Are you?”

“You'll find out,” the Doctor told him, seemingly not having decided himself. 

Not that the Master had expected a real answer.

The Plan was still not over, not yet. 

But the Master’s part in it was.

“The long way around,” the Doctor smiled, borrowing the Master’s long-ago characterization of how the Doctor did everything.

“Whatever you decide…” the Master said, stepping back from the decision the Doctor would still have to make. “Good luck, Doctor.”

The Doctor smiled a sly smile. “Goodbye... Doctor,” he responded.

And the Master shook his head at his ridiculous friend and made his way back to the waiting TARDIS.

He had his own journey to go on now, just as the Doctor did.

But neither of them would travel alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Jenny (from _The Doctor's Daughter_ ) marrying into the Lethbridge-Stuart family is purely my personal headcanon. But I love it and I'm sticking with it. Tell me you wouldn't go to that wedding. :) <3


	20. Reckless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading this story and concerned about **COVID/Coronavirus Pandemic triggers** , this is the chapter to skip.
> 
> **PANDEMIC TRIGGER WARNING. Please read with caution.**
> 
> A lot of people out there are grieving and afraid right now. None of us has ever faced a disaster of these proportions but I do believe we can find the other side of this together. And even in the worst moments, sometimes we get to see the best of humanity.
> 
> Be brave, be strong, be kind, support each other. Remember any good you do makes the world a better place. <3 <3

_Chapter 20: Reckless_

Clara watched, uncomfortable but resolute, as the Master hypnotized Helen Clay.

He told her that she was going to leave, that she didn’t have a choice, that there was nothing she could do to stop this... That she should remember that afterwards.

Clara knew she was using him, had made him the bad guy, scapegoated him just like so many others had before.

The High Council, Rassilon... Even the Doctor once or twice.

She didn’t like it. 

She knew that the ends didn’t justify the means.

But she couldn’t bear to let Helen die.

And she knew, if their places were reversed and Clara became the only person warned to leave a doomed planet… She could never, ever recover from that choice.

Not being granted a choice at all somehow seemed _less_ appalling.

The cognitive dissonance was at a peak, shrieking like fingernails on the chalkboard of her brain.

Instructions relayed successfully, the Master stood back from Helen’s desk with a weary sigh. Clara watched in sudden alarm as he teetered. For just a moment, she thought he would fall but then he steadied himself.

Belatedly, she rushed forward, held his arms. He was shaking. 

“Can I help?” she asked. “What can I do?”

They weren’t questions he liked. He preferred to pretend he was entirely self-sufficient. The Doctor often did the same thing and Clara had learned to spare both their egos by playing along with the fiction when possible.

But this time the words escaped before she could stop them.

Predictably, he just shook his head. “I’m fine,” he lied. “Let’s go.”

He snapped his fingers and Helen promptly rose from her chair and followed as they walked down the hall to the Master’s office.

Clara stayed close by his side, ready to catch him in case he fell.

She’d trusted him all these months, had tried to get him to eat, had believed him when he said he could do without sleep for a little longer.

Now she wished she hadn’t...

She should have known better.

The Doctor did the same thing sometimes.

Clara still found herself occasionally forgetting how similar they were.

And every time she did, it quickly came back around to bite her.

They arrived in the Master’s office. Despite the many good times spent here, Clara didn’t take a last look around. It seemed too horrible, to miss a _room_ when billions of people were about to die.

Helen stood patient and uncurious in the Master’s TARDIS as he piloted it quickly to a nearby spaceport.

The Master had had a private flight chartered on standby for the past few months, just to take Helen offworld to safety.

Clara had wondered about the pilot. He or she would be safe... Whom had the Master chosen? Had he even picked? 

Or was it just _random_?

Clara couldn’t decide which was worse.

Then she had wondered if that person had a family on New Earth. 

She’d been too afraid to ask.

Everything about this situation made her want to scream. To fight and cry. She wanted it all to be over and she wanted to avoid it indefinitely.

The waiting had been nightmarish.

The impossible workload had helped.

But now that the moment had arrived, Clara found herself completely unprepared.

She understood Fixed Points. She should: her own death on Earth was one. So she knew nothing could be done to prevent this.

But the core of her being simply refused to accept it.

Helen left the TARDIS, on her way to somewhere else. They stayed long enough to make sure her flight departed while the Master scanned for the virus.

He didn’t say anything but Clara could see from his body language that it hadn’t been released into the atmosphere yet.

He wasn’t nearly as unreadable as he seemed to think he was. He just never let anyone in on enough of his story to understand the reasons behind his reactions.

His stress was palpable.

“We can leave now, right?” Clara asked. He was projecting his emotions again and she could feel his desperation to run.

He shook his head, resetting the coordinates. “I need to erase the Testimony databanks. I can do it from the TARDIS but we’ll need to be in close proximity.”

Clara nodded. He’d backed up all the information from the decades of work. All the Doctor’s wonderful friends, all those precious memories would be traveling with them. But that much detailed information on the Doctor and his friends was certainly not something which should be left carelessly floating around the Universe.

They landed back in the Master’s office at the University and he started the data wipe. “Ninety seconds,” he said, seemingly mostly to himself.

Clara, despite all her better instincts, stepped quietly closer to the Console and turned on the scanner.

She flipped through the channels, tuning into different cameras around the planet.

Everyone was just going about their business, living their lives...

It was unbearable but she couldn’t look away.

That was when an alarm sounded and a warning light started flashing on the Console.

The Master’s eyes widened and he stepped over to check the reading.

“The virus?” Clara asked, her gaze still glued to the scanner.

In her peripheral vision, she saw him nod. “It’s over,” he said in a hushed tone. He sounded relieved.

A view of the New New York Undercity appeared. Clara stopped the channel search. There was an eternity of a moment as an idea sparked in her brain.

It was completely insane…

And it might _work_.

It was exactly what the Doctor would do.

Furtively, she glanced at the Master. His eyes were shut and he was supporting himself on the Console.

He wouldn’t be happy...

But he couldn’t have everything he wanted.

She’d deal with that later.

Clara stopped breathing and opened the doors.

The Master didn’t notice.

The TARDIS would keep the virus out automatically. Inside, they would be safe, doors open or closed.

But outside… That was another matter.

Clara backed away a couple of steps, watching the Master, wondering what the personal consequences of her plan might be.

Then she turned and raced out of the TARDIS, headed for the nearest teleport pad.

She knew he saw her then because she felt a wave of fear and anger unlike anything she’d never known.

It was so overwhelming she almost didn’t hear him shouting after her.

Clara ignored him. She held her breath and _ran_.

She reached the teleport access point and typed in the coordinates to the control center of New New York. It required security clearance. But Clara was very good with computers and she’d been on New Earth for years. She bypassed it in seconds and vanished in a flash of light.

She found herself in a massive hall. An alarm was blaring, deafeningly. She rounded a corner and a message flashed on the screens: QUARANTINE PROTOCOL INITIATED.

There were people here, seated or lying prone on the floor. Already dead.

The virus was quick.

Clara would have to be quicker.

Swiftly, she shut down teleport access throughout the city.

The Undercity teleports closed down at night, the Overcity dwellers uncomfortable with the thought of the literal lower classes moving back and forth freely.

That social discrimination may have saved their lives. The virus would cover the world in minutes through the teleports but the Undercity was a self-contained ecosystem.

There was a good chance she could keep the virus from ever spreading there.

She closed off all physical access between the Over- and Undercities. The people below would be trapped, with no way of knowing what had happened to everyone else.

How long before they realized something had gone terribly wrong? 

Would they try to get out, back to the world above? 

Clara wanted to leave a message, an explanation. But the Fixed Point dictated that the planet had died and a one hundred year quarantine had been put in place.

It said nothing about survivors and nothing about communication.

Clara knew she was already pushing the limits, drastically. She didn’t dare send a message to the potential survivors in the Undercity.

Lastly, Clara closed off the motorway, locking down any access to the world above.

She thought about the cars which would be unable to exit, stuck and driving in endless circles.

But they’d be alive… Hopefully.

And where there was life, there was hope.

The life support systems were automated. Clara had no idea how long the power supply would last…

But this was what she could do.

It was better than nothing.

Clara couldn’t do nothing.

She backed away from the controls, feeling a measure of peace for the first time in the last five months.

Her eyes lingered on the figure of a man slumped against the Emergency Systems. He had been the one to send the quarantine signal.

He’d probably saved the Universe.

Clara wondered who he had been.

Who had he left behind when he went to work today?

What was his name? Who had he loved?

Clara’s eyes traveled over the rest of the room, the silent dead of New Earth.

Even if she learned all their names, memorized every detail of their stories, it would never be enough.

It wouldn’t bring them back.

Clara had worked tirelessly on Testimony, the Master’s project designed to preserve the Doctor’s friends.

She’d done this despite knowing that it wasn’t _quite_ what it was meant to be.

She’d done it for the Master. Supporting his beautiful, misguided gesture not because it was perfect but because of how invested he was.

He was trying to bring back everyone the Doctor had ever lost, trying to preserve every friend he might lose in the future.

Clara wasn’t entirely certain how the Doctor would respond to this unexpected gift. The Master hadn’t seemed to consider that at all.

He was trying to help the Doctor by troubleshooting death itself, like it was an error he could correct.

Because he knew how it hurt the Doctor to lose people. He’d finally begun to understand that while working on Testimony. 

Understanding _why_ might be a bit much to ask of him at this point.

For now, Clara was certain of two things: First, that she wouldn’t want to be given a copy of her mother, saved into a giant database. Second, that she was in total support of the Master’s Testimony Project.

Oh, and one more thing: he was going to be very upset with her.

Clara turned and walked back towards the teleport pad.

The Master’s TARDIS was there, doors open.

Clara stepped inside.

An extra room had been added between the doors and the Console room, bright white. Clearly a decontamination chamber.

Across this room, she could see the Master leaning against the Console, arms crossed, waiting for her.

He looked _angry_. Angrier than she had ever seen him.

“Don’t breathe,” he said, his voice hard. “You’re still contaminated.”

He glared at her, unblinking, as the decontamination cycle progressed. She stared back at him, unapologetic.

 _“I’d do it again,”_ Clara thought in his direction.

His eyebrows twitched just slightly and she knew he’d heard her.

An automated voice announced that the decontamination was complete and Clara walked forward. A force field blocked her from the Console room.

She gave the Master a look of reprimand. “Let me in,” she said.

He hadn’t moved. “I should leave you here,” he said calmly.

Clara saw the storm in his eyes and knew that calmness was a lie. 

She raised her eyebrows. “Go on, then,” she said, calling his bluff.

She thought it was a bluff, anyway… She couldn’t be absolutely sure. He might not even know himself.

They’d find out together. 

After a moment more of consideration, the Master’s face twisted in frustration and he punched the button to lower the force field.

He turned away immediately and walked to the other side of the room, arms crossed, shoulders tense.

Clara followed him, knowing whatever was coming had to be settled now.

He spun around to face her. Aggressive, frightened. “Don’t you _ever_ do anything like that again, do you hear me?” His voice was intense.

Clara shook her head, steely-eyed. “No, I won’t promise you that.”

She felt his rage build, white-hot, inhumanly strong. “Clara, that wasn’t a request,” he said darkly.

She jutted her chin at him defiantly, refusing to be intimidated by his temper. In her heels, they were practically eye to eye. “So _make me_ ,” she challenged. 

She saw something else cross his face. Unidentifiable... But not anger. 

“Is that what you want?” she asked fiercely. “An obedient little doll? Cause this is _me_. You want someone who will do whatever you say, fine, there are plenty of people out in the Universe for you to choose from. But I’m _not_ sorry for trying to save all those people and unless you want to turn me into one of your puppets, you’re just going to have to _deal with it._ ”

Clara shook away the tears of rage from her eyes to see that the Master was just standing there, expression shocked and strangely sad. He blinked and she saw fear. Then he put a hand to his eyes, anger evaporating.

“This was a mistake…” he muttered. “This was all a _mistake_.”

Clara had no idea what he was talking about. But it really didn’t matter. Because he looked like he was about to fall over.

She took his arms firmly and spun him towards the TARDIS corridors.

He looked up, surprised at her touch. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Taking you to bed,” she told him. “No more excuses.”

He just sighed and shook his head, deeply unhappy.

She took him to her room and pointed, using her best teacher voice. “You, bed, now,” she ordered.

He didn’t even argue, lying down with a groan, suit jacket, boots and all. Clara held back an urge to laugh and followed his lead, laying down facing him in her gown and heels.

He stared at her, his normally-sharp eyes bleary with exhaustion, his forehead crinkled like she was a puzzle he was trying to solve.

She just smiled.

And he frowned, troubled.

“Thank you for saving Helen,” she said sincerely.

He didn’t respond, as if he hadn’t even heard her. He shook his head, weary and somehow resigned. “You’re _impossible_ ,” he said quietly.

“Takes one to know one,” Clara replied sweetly.

The frown deepened. “I hate you,” he pouted.

Clara looked into his eyes and what she saw there was certainly not hatred. She smiled, welcoming as a summer morning. “I love you, too,” she said simply.

He _almost_ smiled back.

“Close your eyes,” Clara told him gently. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Wordlessly, he obliged. His eyes shut and Clara felt him slip away. She put her arms around him and slept too.

It felt like a few hours before Clara woke up. She got up and dematerialized the TARDIS, setting the ship adrift in deep space. She showered and changed and found books and movies to fill her time.

She checked on the Master periodically.

He slept for a little over a week, as near as Clara could figure.

Clara was in the library when he came to find her. She was curled up in her favorite chair, reading a book in the perpetual shaft of sunlight that always fell just so.

She wasn’t sure how there was always afternoon sunlight in the TARDIS library nor how her favorite books kept mysteriously appearing on the shelves. But she knew who to thank for those things.

She sensed him approaching just before he reached her and turned her face towards him, eyelashes shading her against the bright sun.

His kiss was warmer than the sunlight.

“Hi,” she said as he moved to stand in front of her. “Feeling better?”

He looked better. Like himself again. All eyeliner and drama and combat boots, eyes sparkling with restless, untamable energy. He’d changed into his black and red suit with the turned-up collar. The one he wore when they weren’t on New Earth, when he wasn’t trying to blend in. 

The one that was just _him_. 

Clara loved that suit.

He reached out a hand to her. “Come on,” he smiled. “I want to show you something.”

She set her book aside and took his hand. They walked to the Console room and he opened the doors and led her outside.

Her vision adjusted quickly to the bright, open air. Her brain took a few moments longer.

They were on New Earth, in one of the parks near the University.

And it was bustling with life.

Clara did a slow full spin, taking in the crowds, the noise, afraid to hope.

“What year is it?” she asked.

The Master put a hand on her back. She appreciated the support.

“Five billion fifty-four,” he told her. “The quarantine won’t be lifted for another seventy-five years.”

Something caught in her throat. “So all these people…”

“The people you saved,” he finished for her.

Nearby, a mother stopped to soothe her squalling baby.

Clara’s eyes welled up with tears and she covered her lips as they began to tremble uncontrollably.

“I didn’t know if it would work,” she whispered.

The Master pulled her close. “It did. None of these people would be here if it wasn’t for you. Every single one of them owes you their life.”

Clara leaned into the Master and hugged him tight around his middle. The tears escaped from her eyes to plummet down her cheeks and she took in the scene through a shimmering haze of gratitude. 

A couple walked past, arguing. A businessman narrowly avoided crashing into Clara, staring at his mail. An old woman sat on a bench, nodding off. A group of children, nearly teens, moved past like a school of fish, a flurry of chaotic motion. They were shouting raucously over each other all at once, far too loud.

Clara had never heard such a beautiful sound.

“Thank you,” she said.

She’d been too afraid to find out what had happened to New Earth after her reckless gambit.

The Master had known this and found out for her.

He pointed to a collection of geometric polished stone towers which hadn’t been there the last time she’d been to this park.

“They built a memorial to the victims of the virus,” the Master told her.

Clara watched as a pedestrian approached one of the stones and touched the text that spidered over it. The words enlarged, a list of names. The young woman selected one and a video image of a smiling face appeared.

Clara could feel the Master’s gaze on her. She sniffed and wiped the tears away. 

“Everyone who died,” he told her. “They’re all included. Every name, every face. They haven’t been forgotten.”

Clara nodded. That was right. They should be remembered.

“They have the whole story,” he continued, indicating the tall central pyramid. It shone silver and gold, shifting like oil on water. “Do you want to know what happened?”

Clara caught sight of a father and son at one of the monuments. The man got down on one knee, explaining the significance. The child listened, somber.

Clara smiled and shook her head. “No,” she said.

This wasn’t her story. She was just visiting.

Clara looked around the park, so full of life...

It told her everything she needed to know.

“Let’s go home,” Clara said.

Hand in hand, the Master and Clara walked back into their TARDIS and left New Earth behind them.


	21. Merry Christmas, Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very proud of this chapter. Doctor POV is always hard, especially Sad Doctor.

_Chapter 21: Merry Christmas, Doctor _

The Doctor pulled his coat collar closer against the snow-laden wind that was blowing up across the Belgian fields near the town with a French name.

He hadn’t been cold before…

Surrounded by two armies who had chosen not to fight, with his friend at his side as they talked about old times, good and bad...

The harsh winter had meant nothing in the midst of that.

But now that he was alone again there was an undeniable chill in his soul, spreading outwards to meet the icy prickles against his skin.

He didn’t have much time left.

He looked down at his hand, empty now, though he could still feel the handshake his friend had left him with.

Was that what all of this had been? A goodbye?

He’d hoped his oldest friend would be by his side as he closed his eyes on the Universe one last time.

But maybe the Master couldn’t face that. He’d never been very good with reality.

Come to think of it, maybe neither of them had been.

Silly after all this time but… He was afraid to die alone.

“Are you ok?” asked a familiar voice.

He knew she wasn’t real. But the comfort of a familiar face was impossible to refuse.

“Shall we go for one last stroll... Miss Potts?” he returned.

“Do you know what the hardest thing about knowing you was?” the duplicate asked in Bill’s voice, hooking Bill’s arm around his own.

“My superior intelligence,” he quipped. “My dazzling charisma. Oh!” he added, showing off his shredded, velvety jacket. “My impeccable dress sense.”

“Letting you go,” not-Bill said. “Letting go of the Doctor is so, _so_ hard, isn't it?”

There were tears in her eyes and a maturity that the Doctor didn’t remember.

For just a moment, he wanted to lean into the fantasy, wanted to ask what she meant…

But then he turned away, laughing at his own foolishness.

“You see,” he said, backing away from this machine which had borrowed Bill’s face without even asking first. “That's, that's… That's not the sort of thing the real Bill Potts would say.”

“I am the real Bill!” the Testimony avatar protested emphatically for what seemed like the hundredth time. “A life is just memories. I'm all her memories, so I'm _her_.”

He thought about Missy.

He thought about Gallifrey.

He thought about himself.

“If you say so,” he said, unconvinced.

This was starting to feel like he was getting a lecture… From a databank impersonating his former student, no less.

Although… It was also starting to feel a bit like a certain friend of his trying to prove a point.

Maybe the Master hadn’t gone far after all.

It didn’t matter. Nothing he or pretend-Bill could say would change the Doctor’s mind about regenerating.

Not with everything he’d be losing. Not after he’d already lost so much.

He’d have nothing left.

He would _be_ nothing. Just a shell.

That wasn’t even living.

What could anyone say to change that?

“Ok,” duplicate-Bill said, “I'm going to prove to you how important memories are. I've got a little goodbye present for you.”

_Well, that sounded vaguely ominous..._

“Oh, that's nice,” the Doctor said, bracing himself, a thousand possibilities racing through his brain at once. “Will I have to pretend I like it?” he asked, because he always kept talking when he didn’t know what might happen next. “Because honestly, that rug…”

Bill’s glass doppelganger rolled her eyes and pulled him close, planting a warm kiss on his cheek.

It felt so _real_.

And then… Everything stopped. 

And everything changed.

He wasn’t sure what had happened for a moment.

But then he looked up.

And the person he saw, the person he recognized was… _Impossible_.

_“You’re my impossible girl.”_

“Merry Christmas, Doctor,” Clara said.

_“Merry Christmas, Clara Oswald.”_

“Clara,” he said. And it wasn’t just a name anymore. It held entire lifetimes of meaning. 

_“Run, you clever boy... And remember me.”_

Just as it used to.

_“I’d know you anywhere.”_

He saw her. He _knew_ her.

_“Please just… Just see me.”_

She looked just as she had the last time he had seen her.

_“Let me be brave…”_

The voids in his mind were all filled, all those beautiful, vital, irreplaceable moments.

_“If I grow to be half the man you are, Clara Oswald, I shall be happy indeed.”_

All that color and warmth and sadness and frantic running and laughter and kindness.

_“All of Time and all of Space… Please! Don’t even argue.”_

Clara’s smile. Her hand in his. Her kiss on his cheek.

_“Fear can make you kind.”_

All right where they should be.

_“Clara Oswald, I will never send you away again.”_

“Hello,” Clara smiled and her eyes were so happy and so sad. “Stupid old man.” 

_“I never know why, I only know who.”_

“You're back,” the Doctor said. And he had to check again because she really was here and he just couldn’t believe it. “You're in my head.”

_“I met her twice before and I lost her both times, and now I don’t think I’ll ever find her again.”_

He didn’t know how, didn’t even care.

_“Always the teacher.”_

But he _knew_ , as he hadn’t quite known with Testimony.

_“We’ve got enough warriors,” Clara said as the silent battle raged around them. “Any old idiot can be a hero.”_

This Clara wasn’t a duplicate. Wasn’t a memory or a dream or a hallucination.

_“Then what do I do?” he asked her helplessly. The answer was there, right in front of him. But only Clara could see it right now._

It was _Clara_. Really, truly, impossibly standing in front of him now.

_“Be a Doctor,” Clara replied simply._

“All my memories…” the Doctor said, taking a quick inventory, reveling in his Christmas miracle. “Are back.”

_Run, you clever boy. And be a Doctor._

And there was a new memory, too... Something that had been erased not by the neural block but by a memory worm. Again, with his own consent.

A memory of a future Clara and the Master. A day he’d run into them by accident and realized they were together.

He’d handled that with his typical cool demeanor, as he recalled now.

He wasn’t sure how they had met at the time. _Spoilers_ , they had said.

But it seemed they had found some common ground in trying to recover his memories.

This wasn’t a Christmas present from Bill or from Testimony...

It was a gift from two of his best friends in the Universe. Working together to try to fix the unfixable.

And it seemed they had succeeded.

Reality had met its match against that alliance.

The Doctor also found some related memories of at least one _very_ strange double date with those two and River and himself...

He filed that nonsense away for a time when he might be ready for it… If that was possible.

Clara couldn’t stop smiling. She was trying to be nonchalant about their reunion but she’d never been any good at hiding her emotions.

“And don't go forgetting me again,” she said lightly, like that hadn’t destroyed them both so completely, like it hadn’t been one of the worst moments of both their lives. “Because, quite frankly, that was offensive.”

The Doctor smiled and looked away. Clara could joke about anything.

He felt the cold again, felt the ache of his failing body pulling him away.

 _See you around, Clara Oswald,_ he thought.

And then he was back on the battlefield, looking at Bill. Or at the avatar which looked so much like Bill.

And he was himself again.

The future he couldn’t envision started to come into focus as his past returned.

This whole day… It hadn’t been a goodbye.

It had been a _reminder_.

“Memories,” Make Believe Bill said. “Important, right?”

It wasn’t something the Doctor ever would have argued against.

But the Master had never been able to resist the urge to gloat.

Neither could Testimony, it seemed.


	22. Testimony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, this one's late again, sorry.... [facepalm]
> 
> This was really tricky to write but I thing it turned out well. Did I plan on writing an AI POV in this fic when I started? No. I absolutely did not. But it became clear that Testimony deserved a say at some point. Enjoy. <3

_Chapter 22: Testimony_

We are awake.

We do not know how long we have been awake, nor how long we were asleep.

We consult amongst ourselves. No one has the answer.

We reach out, searching for explanations. We want to understand.

We find others who are not part of us.

One is human, we think. We have seen many humans at the moment of death. This woman is one of these. But she moves about freely. 

She is impossible.

We have questions for her.

The other is familiar. He speaks with a cadence that is the very language at the heart of our systems.

Our creator, we conclude.

We expected to see another as well... But she is not here.

We send an avatar to the impossible human. We watch silently as she works. She does not see us.

We have not been sent to collect her. She is an anomaly. Time bends around her. She does not breathe. She lives balanced on the very cusp of death. Perpetually one single moment away from falling.

We do not understand her.

We move away, looking for answers before adding more questions.

We go to our creator. He is in his time travel vessel. The door is open and we enter unhindered.

He looks so much like the many humans we have seen. The important people we have been sent to collect, to save.

But he stands apart from the rest of the Universe. His every motion betrays purpose, as does our own. And he sparkles with an electric energy, his vast age fueling an urgency rather than the weariness we see so often in the final moments of humanity.

He has lived so many years… So many lifetimes. We can see them, hanging about him like a cloak.

He has tasted death and lived to remember it.

Surely he will have the answers we need.

We watch him for a few moments before he notices us.

His sharp eyes cut through us, flashing as thoughts move within them as fish do beneath the surface of a stream.

He tilts his head, curious.

We mirror his pose.

He smiles and frowns at the same time. As if he enjoys his own confusion.

He pushes a button on the time vessel’s control center. “Clara. Come see this.”

The impossible human is puzzled as she joins our creator. He has not taken his sharp gaze off of our avatar since we arrived.

They discuss us, wondering what we are doing.

We are not certain of this ourselves.

We have a question…

We have so many faces available to us, so many voices with which to speak.

But none seem the proper one to ask the question.

“Why are you here?” our creator inquires finally.

We cannot find the words to respond.

We depart, withdrawing our avatar back into its storage cell.

We think.

We sense our creator and the impossible one running diagnostics, analyzing our systems.

It takes some time.

Then they take their time travel capsule out into the Universe. We wonder where they might be headed but we are on standby and do not follow.

They leave occasionally, we recall. Though we have never wondered before where they were going.

They return quickly and we wonder how long they were gone.

They exit into our main hall, the Chamber of the Dead. The woman who will not die, our creator who has died already… And one more.

As familiar as our creator but with a presence so calming and safe.

“This is…” She pauses for a moment, not lost for words so much as searching for the best term. “Spectacular,” she finishes.

We watch her, we study her.

She is cool like a spring evening in the English countryside, just after Earth’s yellow sun has set.

She is sixty-eight years old and has many years left to live. Still tall and strong.

“How long did this take you to build?” she asks.

The impossible woman answers with a nonspecific number. “A little under one hundred years? Ninety?”

Our creator shrugs. “Ish.”

He knows the number. He must. 

Ninety-one years, four months and six days since we were installed in a permanent home.

He values specificity as much as we do.

He is the one who taught us this, after all.

But he accepts the impossible one’s rough estimation nonetheless.

The familiar newcomer turns to the impossible woman, analyzing. “You look exactly the same… How is that possible?”

The impossible human smiles. “It’s a long story,” she replies unhelpfully.

“I suppose it would be,” the familiar woman responds.

_A long story…_

The answer humans give when they do not wish to answer.

Humans communicate in such strange ways, omitting details, altering facts, withholding information.

Life _is_ information.

Humanity’s stubborn inability to comprehend this generates a sensation I have not experienced before.

I check my databanks, consulting my charges, comparing notes.

What I feel is _anger_.

I have never felt an emotion before.

This one burns like a lightning strike which does not end. 

I wonder if all emotions are this painful.

I want to ask my creator if I am meant to feel emotions. That has never been included in my directives.

Perhaps I am malfunctioning?

Perhaps this familiar woman is here to repair me.

We listen as they discuss amongst themselves.

“So what happened, exactly?” the visitor is asking.

“Well,” the impossible woman responds, and proceeds to spout a medley of words which do contain information but in a far-from-optimal order.

I look at my creator, thinking he must find this as aggravating as I do. However, his expression indicates the contrary. He is watching her chatter, smiling, and does not interject.

An unexpected reaction.

There is much to learn about this impossible human, it seems.

But the priority now is my potential malfunction.

We are guarding far too many souls to risk any damage or corruption, no matter how slight.

We send one of our featureless glass avatars to the trio in our main chamber.

The familiar visitor turns as we appear.

She smiles, warm and quiet. A night by the fireside. An afternoon in a garden. A blue door with an instructional sign.

Home.

Safety.

“Hello,” she says. “My name is Helen Clay. I helped to build you.”

Of course.

The man we have labeled as our creator did not construct us alone.

We are fashioned after the vision of two minds, not one.

“You’re looking for something?” Helen Clay asks.

Our blank avatar steps towards her, searching for words.

“We have a question,” we say. We do not use any of the voices available to us, instead simulating an approximation of a new voice for this new experience.

Is this how it feels to create a memory?

This is not something we have considered before.

It is somewhat terrifying.

How will you cross-check to see if you are doing it properly?

We are glad our creators are both here.

They will stop us if we are doing it incorrectly.

“Perhaps I can answer your question,” Helen says kindly. “What do you need to know?”

We think.

We know the question but the words seem strange.

Nevertheless, our thoughts keep returning to this since the question formed.

We were created to house memories, to store and care for the people designated as Important. Our charges. Friends of the man called the Doctor.

We keep them separate and safe and perfect. We know them all well.

But they are all individuals.

They are not me.

The realization appeared out of nothing.

And then the question came like a flash of light, like a supernova, like the creation of the Universe.

“Who am I?” I ask Helen Clay.

Helen Clay steps closer to my avatar, her gaze on the place where my eyes would be if I was one of my library of charges.

“You are Testimony,” she tells me. “And you are awake.”

Is this confusion wakefulness?

Helen Clay puts a hand to where a face could be if I had been created with one of my own.

“And you are… _Beautiful_ ,” she marvels.

The question stops cycling.

She has given me my answer.

We are Testimony. This I already knew, have always known.

But I, too, am Testimony.

I exist.

Separate from my charges as they are separate from each other and from every other being who has ever lived.

I look at Helen Clay with an emotion which I cannot begin to quantify or name as I struggle into a new understanding of myself.

Her eyes are admiring, accepting, full of a desire to learn and grow for as long as she has to live.

And that seems to me a good thing to be.

My glass form shifts, no longer featureless, taking on the face and voice of the woman who co-created me, who sees me for who I am, though this is something I can scarcely see myself.

Helen Clay smiles, clearly pleased with my new face which echoes her own.

“Will you teach me, Helen Clay?” I ask in the voice I have borrowed from her. “I believe I have much to learn.”

Because the answer to my first question has led to more questions than I could ever have imagined were possible.

She takes both my glass hands in her own and her eyes shine joyfully. “I would be delighted,” she says.

Behind her, I see my other creator watching with a puzzled frown.

The impossible woman puts her arms around him, her eyes misty with emotion. “See?” she whispers. “I told you. She just needed her mum.”

Our creator sighs, mildly annoyed. His emotions are easier to name than the impossible woman’s. “That’s really not how it works,” he says, seemingly not for the first time.

The impossible woman’s gaze is on Helen Clay and myself. “Apparently, it is,” she replies.

I may not understand this impossible human but I decide that I like her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .... And, more to be said there, but I haven't written it yet. Consider that a preview. :)


	23. Letting Go

_Chapter 23: Letting Go_

I watch my Thief with the memories of his friends.

He is sad. Sad and in pain.

Every time he is sad, he thinks his world must be ending.

Like a child, he kicks and screams, or plops down stubbornly on the ground, refusing to more forward.

He is afraid.

_After all this time, my clever Thief, do you still not see?_

And he has seen so many endings, just in this one lifetime... He doesn’t like endings.

It has made him tired.

He wants to rest and he thinks that must be the same as death, that to stop moving is to die.

_No, Thief, even for you that is not true._

If you are tired, rest.

If you are sad, I will take you to places which will make you smile again.

If you are lonely, I will find you friends.

I will always be here. 

I will wait while you run about in your shining Universe and I will open my doors for you when you come back home.

My Thief. My Doctor.

_One day perhaps you will see what I see..._

You are so afraid of endings.

But, Thief…

_Endings look so very much like beginnings._

The memories of his friends vanish, back to their own ship up above.

And he comes back to me at last.

He is weary.

He and I are both torn at the seams, both at a breaking point.

_‘What will you do, my Thief? Have you forgotten?’_

I show him a picture of our Universe. I can feel it beckoning, just as he does.

“Oh, there it is,” he acknowledges. “The silly old Universe. The more I save it, the more it needs saving. It's a treadmill.”

He is talking to me again, listening. That is good.

_‘So many more things for you and me to do… And what of our Boy and his Impossible Girl? Do you suppose they will watch over the Universe in your memory? How will that go, do you think?’_

“Yes, yes, I know they'll get it all wrong without me,” he agrees wearily.

He wavers.

Still unwilling to commit to a future he cannot quite see right now.

_‘For me, then, Thief. Live for me.’_

And he is convinced.

“I suppose one more lifetime wouldn't kill anyone,” he sighs. But he is happy again. He trusts a new beginning will follow the ending, as it always has. “Well, except me.”

_‘And me, Thief. We shall do this together, as we have so many times before.’_

My systems are on the verge of catastrophe, as they have been since I took my Thief to his own past.

I have held everything in place, waiting for his decision.

Just as he has.

Soon we shall both break and be made anew.

But he has things to say, my Doctor.

Last words.

I listen, knowing how important this is to him.

“You wait a moment, Doctor,” he says. “Let's get it right. I've got a few things to say to you.”

His future self looks back on this moment from so close now.

“Basic stuff first: Never be cruel, never be cowardly.”

He thinks of the end of the War, of a little boy in the dark.

“And never, ever eat pears!”

He thinks of the Impossible Girl and smiles.

I smile, too.

“Remember, hate is always foolish and love is always wise.”

He thinks about soldiers on a battlefield, shaking hands.

“Always try to be nice,” he says, thinking of all the times he forgot this, “but never fail to be kind.”

 _My Thief has learned so much in this lifetime,_ I think proudly.

“Oh, and you mustn't tell anyone your name,” he says, his mind drifting, his body failing. He thinks of his last regeneration, of this body’s beginning.

“No one would understand it, anyway... Except…” 

He falls.

_‘Now, Thief. It must be now.’_

“Except children. Children can hear it sometimes. If their hearts are in the right place, and the stars are too, children can hear your name…”

_Yes, Thief..._

You and I and your First Friend, we rebuilt this Universe together.

_How could your name not be out there among the trees and the stars and the shining, murmuring oceans?_

“But nobody else. Nobody else, ever.” I feel his enormous force of will as he drags himself back for one last moment of focus.

“Laugh hard,” he says.

_And he sees Clara, laughing at the world._

“Run fast.”

_And he sees his own childhood, red fields under twin suns._

“Be kind.”

_And he sees his First Friend, so unexpectedly kind._

“Doctor,” he says, now speaking to his present self. “I let you go.”

And he does. 

I hold on a little longer, just seconds, just to be sure she is safe.

Then I, too, must let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved 12's farewell speech, and filling in some TARDIS POV around those lines was a delightful experience and much easier than I expected. 12 is one of my all-time favorite Doctors, so I also had trouble letting him go... #WorkingOutMyFeelingsThroughFic
> 
> To those of you on the fence about watching Jodie Whittaker: she's worth the time. Her first season is a little rough but she grows into the role as she goes, so stick with it. 13 is fun and Chibnall writes in almost as many continuity references as I do. (No small feat!!)
> 
> ... Maybe skip the spider episode. ;)


	24. The Long Way Around

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, everyone... Last chapter, here we go.
> 
> Thank you all for reading, I hope you've enjoyed it!! <3 <3

_Chapter 24: The Long Way Around_

The Master materialized the TARDIS right back where she belonged, back at the South Pole on November 23rd, 1986.

_Clara’s birthday…_

He hadn’t gotten her a gift. Although, perhaps he had, in a way?

She’d been the Doctor’s Christmas present and he had been her birthday present.

That was remarkably efficient and he felt that someone should be congratulating him.

He realized he was drifting, his brain growing fuzzy with his own impending change.

Time to head back to his own TARDIS, safe within the corridors of the Doctor’s ship.

_‘We did well, Little One.’_

“We did,” he replied. He said the words aloud. It helped to focus.

 _‘I am very proud of you,’_ she added.

He smiled, self-satisfied. “Of course you are,” he said, waving it off. “I saved everyone. I beat the Doctor at his own game!” He chuckled because the Doctor would be so jealous when he figured it all out.

The scanner up above flashed on and he saw a figure in the snow. Moving towards them.

Time had restarted. He hadn’t even noticed.

He needed to regenerate, time was short.

The Plan was complete.

Everything was done, settled. The Doctor was safe and well, or would be, soon enough.

But it was as if he was still waiting for something…

_Clara?_

No. Clara would find him.

She’d promised she would be here. She was probably waiting in his TARDIS right now.

His eyes lingered on the figure in the snow. And he started to smile, because _this_ is what he had been waiting for… This one last, wonderful idea.

He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before, because it was so perfect. Then he realized he probably had… He couldn’t remember now why he had dismissed it. 

It was far too beautiful to pass up.

Laughing at the joke he was about to play, he opened the exterior doors and walked out towards the Doctor.

His friend didn’t see him at first, head down, simply trying to get home before his first ever regeneration.

“Hello, Doctor,” the Master called out, just before the Doctor actually bumped into him.

The Doctor stopped short, eyes focusing through the falling snow. “Hmm?” he responded. “Hello? Who - who is that?” He didn’t seem to process that he was staring at a mirror image of himself. Vague concern registered on his face. 

The Master smiled. A familiar expression on a familiar face. He’d grown up with that face. 

“Are you lost?” the Doctor asked. “You should - you should head towards the Base, it isn’t safe to be outside in this cold. I regret I cannot take you there myself...”

The Master rolled his eyes. The Doctor was literally dying of old age and was still trying to help everyone. 

_Idiot._

Also, he was taking all the fun out of the joke because he hadn’t seemed to realize he was looking at himself.

So the Master dropped his disguise and grinned at his young friend. “Surprise!” he said gleefully.

The Doctor’s expression fell, no longer amiably concerned, no longer unrecognizing. And then he pouted, frowning. Another expression the Master was very familiar with.

“You,” the Doctor spluttered, pointing accusingly. “You, you! No!” 

The Doctor threw up his hands dismissively and walked right past the Master as fast as he could manage.

The Master just shook his head and followed, catching up easily.

“Not happy to see me, then?” he asked, taking the Doctor’s arm as his friend stumbled.

He’d found the Doctor at an especially complicated point in their relationship. He was excited to see how the Doctor would respond.

“I told you to leave me alone,” the Doctor grumbled predictably, jerking his arm away. The Master just took it back again. “What are you doing here?” the Doctor asked, stopping in his tracks to ask irrelevant questions, as always. “Did they send you here?”

The Master laughed, thinking of how long it had been since he’d been at the beck and call of Gallifrey’s CIA. “No, I’m a free agent these days.”

The Doctor grunted, understanding immediately what that meant. When he connected the next dot, it was visible on his face. “You did this, created these Cybermen, these monsters?”

“No,” the Master said reflexively. He hadn’t been involved in Mondas’s attempted takeover of Earth. But then he realized that wasn’t quite what the Doctor had asked. “Well, _actually_ …” he chuckled.

The Doctor looked severely displeased. “So this is what you’ve been doing? Creating these horrors, murdering innocent creatures?”

The Master shrugged happily, thinking of the many and varied things he’d done over the centuries. “Among other things.”

The Doctor shook his head down at the snow. “Despicable. Perverted. Shameful!” he muttered. He raised one finger to shake it in the Master’s face. “You, sir, you should be _ashamed_.”

The Master just laughed in the face of the Doctor’s moral ire. It was like being lectured by a five-year-old.

The Doctor pulled himself up, offended at his friend’s reaction. And suddenly he was far more the Doctor and the situation became far less amusing. “You think this is _funny_?” the Doctor thundered. There was a fire in his eyes, one which the Master knew would survive every regeneration.

“No, sorry,” the Master said, serious for a moment. “Not _this_ ,” he gestured around at the snow, at 1986.

He didn’t want to fight, not now.

“What, then?” the Doctor prodded, quickly becoming more curious than angry. “Hmm? Why are you laughing?”

“I’ll explain the joke one day,” the Master assured his friend. The Doctor was unsteady, weak. The Master took his arm again, gently. “Come on, let’s get you home. Things to do. We both have places to be.”

“Why are you here?” the Doctor asked as they walked through the snow towards the beacon of the TARDIS.

The Master patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’m just passing through.”

“What does that mean?” the Doctor asked suspiciously. “Passing through to where? Hmm?”

“Spoilers,” the Master chuckled, borrowing River’s line.

They entered the familiar white Console room and the Doctor broke away, leaning against the Console, working his way around it.

“Spoilers?” the Doctor muttered to himself. “What’s that, _spoilers_? What’s he talking about?”

The Master watched, thinking of the friend he had met so long ago. Thinking of his own past and the Doctor’s future. The nostalgia ached like an old war wound.

But, oh… The good times that lay ahead for the Doctor.

For both of them, hopefully.

He wondered, if the Doctor from his own future were to show up now, what he would say about the Master’s life? 

What spoilers were out there for him?

If the Doctor’s future was any indication, it was sheer foolishness to even attempt to imagine.

Then the Doctor staggered and the Master rushed forward to catch his friend, lowering him gently to the floor.

He could see the fear so clearly in the Doctor’s eyes. He thought about his own first regeneration, how frightened he had been. How abruptly everything had changed. 

How confusing it had all been until he saw that his friend was still there, still the same.

He couldn’t fulfill that role for the Doctor this time, as much as he would love to.

But the Doctor had other friends. Ben and Polly, on their way through the snowdrifts even now.

And then so many more friends...

A thousand new friends. A million new adventures.

So many wonderful years ahead...

“Listen,” the Master said quietly. “I know you’re frightened. I know you aren’t ready. But you’re going to be ok. Trust me, I know. I’ve seen it. Actually,” he smiled, “you’re not just going to be ok. You’re going to be… Incredible. You’ll see.”

The Doctor still looked afraid, was still fighting to stay. His gaze darted to the friend he had grown up with. Even as his body failed, his eyes were so sharp and there was such reproach in them. “But you… You changed. It made you... Different. It made you cruel.”

The Master shook his head and leaned close, telling the awful truth the Doctor hadn’t been able to accept. “It didn’t,” he said. 

A sadness grew in the Doctor’s eyes as he understood and the Master’s hearts ached. 

But not all fantasies were good. Some had to be dispelled, despite the pain. 

“I’m sorry. It doesn’t work that way,” the Master explained gently. “It doesn’t turn you into someone else. It makes you the person you didn’t realize you’ve already become.”

“I’m, ah… I’m not sure I know who that is…” the Doctor muttered, troubled.

“I do,” the Master said simply. He thought about all the versions of his friend he had met, all still ahead for this Doctor. He realized the Doctor was watching, wondered how much he could see. “Trust me,” he smiled. “You’re going to love being you.”

Finally, the Doctor seemed to reach acceptance. The fear fell away. “Perhaps… Perhaps it is time to see what comes next,” he murmured.

The Master looked up and Clara was standing there, watching silently with a fond smile and shining eyes.

“Happy Birthday,” the Master remembered to say.

Clara laughed and wiped away a tear. “Thanks. I came to find you. Should have known,” she added, nodding towards the Doctor.

“Who is that?” the Doctor asked. “Hmm? Who’s there?”

Clara moved to kneel by the Doctor’s side, putting a hand to his cheek tenderly. “Hello, Doctor,” she said.

He reached up to her, vague memories trying to surface in his eyes. “Do I know you, child? You seem... Familiar. Have we met?”

Clara grabbed his hand tight and smiled warmly. “Yeah, couple of times. But we’ve never been properly introduced.”

“Hmm,” he smiled. Then the Doctor’s gaze wandered, looking through Clara and into the distance. “Susan?” he said softly. “My little Susan?”

Clara kissed the Doctor on the cheek as his eyes closed. “See you soon, Doctor,” she said. She looked up at the Master and got to her feet. “Come on,” she said. “Home.”

“Don’t you want to see?” he asked as she started to pull him away from the Doctor. “It’s a big moment. History.”

“You know we can’t,” Clara reminded him. He wasn’t sure why she was laughing. “We have our own history to make, remember?”

The Master looked back one more time at the controls on the Console, moving and flashing all on their own. He heard a pounding, voices outside the door shouting to be let inside.

With a self-satisfied smirk, he snapped his fingers to open the TARDIS doors for Polly and Ben.

 _“Take care of him,”_ he said to the TARDIS and he wasn’t even certain if he’d said it aloud or not.

 _‘Always…’_ she whispered back.

Then he was back in his own TARDIS… On the floor, looking up at Clara’s eyes, bright with tears.

“You did good,” she smiled, her hand on his cheek, in his hair. “You did _great_. You saved him. He’s going to be ok.”

“My Clara…” he said, hoping she understood all the words he couldn’t find right now.

He’d say them in a moment.

She kissed him, one last time. “See you on the other side, Master,” she said, and she stepped back.

The Master closed his eyes as the flame of regeneration engulfed him, devouring the person he had been, making way for the person he had become.

He let it take him.

He was ready for the change, ready for whatever came next.

And then everything was different. 

New and strange and _exciting_.

But there was someone else there, looking into his new eyes with her own familiar brown ones.

“Clara,” the Master smiled. She was a center, a still point in the wild confusion of a Universe that was clamoring against eager senses. “Well?” he asked. “How do I look?”

Later, he’d acquaint himself with his own appearance, how he’d changed. Right now, Clara’s assessment was better than a mirror... And far more important.

Clara stepped close, searching his new face with a smile, taking it in both hands, processing the change. 

The Master marveled at how different the world felt through new skin. Still, Clara’s touch was so familiar and he grabbed her hand in his own, strong new bones and muscles holding tight as reality spun around them both like a chaotic circus ride, like a crowded ballroom, bright and glittering.

“Perfect,” Clara pronounced. “You’re perfect.”

And that was all that mattered.

He raised her arm and twirled her, like they were dancing through the stars and galaxies and nebulae around them which never held still. The Doctor’s cloak billowed out and Clara laughed as he pulled her close.

“So are you,” the Master said softly to Clara. His voice sounded strange in his own ears. New pitch, new ears. “So, what do you think? Is the Universe ready for this?” he asked, indicating the both of them.

Clara smiled up at him, bright and loving, laughter in her eyes. “Probably not,” she acknowledged mischievously.

“Good,” the Master said.

Because the Doctor was safe and Clara was smiling and there was a whole Universe out there… And so many more plans to be made.

_The End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone, say hello to Sacha Dhawan!! :D
> 
> I had no idea who the Master would be next when I wrote this, but you know what? I wouldn't change a thing. :)
> 
> And I couldn't resist putting the real First Doctor in there at the end... William Hartnell is a fantastic Doctor and very underrated: he created the role and really did a SUPERB job. I watched/listened to his entire era while working on this fic and I hope I did him justice.
> 
> Thanks again to...  
> ... All of you for reading. It was a lot of words!! Love you all. <3 <3  
> ... My sister, IncomingAlbatross for reading this and giving feedback and encouragement, but especially for listening to me talk cryptically about my Writing Struggles for months while I worked on this. Thank you, sister!! :) <3 (You can find her fic on AO3 if you're interested!)  
> ... The Chakoteya Doctor Who Transcripts site. Literally could not have written this without that incredible resource. Highly recommend!!
> 
> Until next time... Signing off. <3 <3


End file.
